


A Dream of Peace

by Cosmicserenity



Series: Songbird [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels, Angst, Brothers, Cas in superhell, Dean Winchester Has Issues, Dean Winchester is Bad at Feelings, Determined Dean, Grim Reaper - Freeform, M/M, Plot Twists, Rescue Mission, The ending we actually deserve, longfic, sam winchester is a good brother, spells
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:48:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 34,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27731815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cosmicserenity/pseuds/Cosmicserenity
Summary: Dean thought that if he tried hard enough to forget, he could let the sight of the familiar trenchcoat fade into the depths of his memory and die there.  He thought he could forget almost anything that had to do with him now that he was gone, and live his life as a normal hunter with normal goals.But he couldn't- because every time he closed his eyes, he saw the same scene play out in front of him. The ooze. The tears. The confession. The loss.Castiel was gone, taken by a Reaper  who had no other motive than to render the both of them to dust and an Ex-Angel with a grudge that ran deep, and Dean had to get him back at any cost- even if that meant finding a way to fall into The Empty right after him.--Takes place around three and a half months after 15X19.ON HIATUS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE!All Chapter titles are from Fleetwood Mac songs.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Songbird [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2028523
Comments: 14
Kudos: 49





	1. When The Sky is Starless

**Author's Note:**

> Expect to see a fair share of new and old characters, tons of plot twists, and a lil spice here and there, too.  
> Also, this is my first multi-chapter fic since my wattpad days, lmao- so it might be a bit rough  
> Comments, Kudos, and anything elses are appreciated!

It was 3 in the morning, rain was pouring endlessly against old motel windows that barely withstood the thick autumn wind that blew against them, and Dean hadn’t slept for the past week and a half.

Where he was in the country, he didn’t know. For days, weeks, he had done nothing but drive, setting aside his need to eat, sleep or drink in the pursuit of a knowledge that he didn’t have but despairingly desired, and let every thought, every detail and every emotion flow in and out of his body like a rapid river. The more he rode, the more the concept of an end destination slipped its way from his mind, getting further and further the more he drove down city streets and heard his slowly-rusting engine rumble whenever he crossed state lines, and he had only decided to stop once he felt himself begin to slip in and out of consciousness. Even then, he didn’t stop because he wanted to. 

He stopped because he didn’t want to die by car crash until he found what he wanted.

Sam was probably worried, scouring the earth for the last bit of family that he had left and failing miserably, but Dean tried his hardest to suppress the concern that picked at his heart under his tired features as he sat hunched over a rickety dining table and tried to make sense of a book that was inherently senseless. His little brother couldn’t begin to understand how Dean felt, how his heart constantly broke and reformed in his chest with every waking moment, how his mind was a garbled mess of incoherent thoughts and half-formed emotions. He couldn’t understand how excruciating it was to exist in a world that built him up and molded him from clay just to tear him down and shatter him into fragments so small that they floated in the air and burned in the atmosphere. Sam couldn’t understand any of it, no matter how hard he tried or how hard he wanted to, and Dean didn’t want him to understand, either. He just wanted to get out of his way, as he had already accepted that he would never be able to be the big brother he once was ever again. 

No, now, Dean was nothing but a broken man, a culmination of strings and wires so tightly bound but loosely formed that he could collapse into pieces at any moment. For weeks he had tried, genuinely tried, to return to his normal life and walk on the open country roads with his eyes on the future, but when the days turned into nights and he had no choice but to stare at himself in the mirror, he still saw it all replay in front of him in glitching scenes like a dilapidated VHS tape. The push. The steadily widening, reluctantly resigned smile on his face. The utterance of words so foreign to Dean’s ears that they felt unnatural. The weak response that somehow managed to seep from the depths of his throat, too afraid to let the moment pass but too cowardly to say the right words. The ooze, smelling of burning sulfur and rotten flesh, that crept up from the floor to the tail of his coat, from his shaking hands to the nape his neck, and then finally from the bottom of his chin to the top of his head as the overwhelming sensation of Emptiness welcomed him into its domain. 

He saw it all, fresh in his mind and seared into his pupils, and he never let himself forget it. Not when he was asleep or awake, moving constantly or stuck in place, trying to live properly or trying to die recklessly. It was a curse, a pair of iron shackles that kept his head low to the ground and refused to release themselves from him until he found a way to fix the unfixable and repair the irrevocable. Dean told himself that it was impossible, and he could almost bring himself to believe the thought, but he couldn’t stop searching for the one chance he convinced himself existed somewhere in the abyss of occult knowledge that he had grown so accustomed to diving into. There was a way to bring him back. There was always a way to bring him back. There had to be a way to bring him back.

Please, let there be a way to bring him back.

Dean flicked through the pages of yet another book and tried to focus against the pitter-pattering sounds of somber rain, the pile of other unread ones and already read ones beginning to muddle together on the floor to his left, and felt his head begin to nod back and forth as he slowly lost the battle to his long-withstanding exhaustion. His watch read ‘3:36’, and he cursed with a stretch before slumping his elbows down on the table’s cold glass surface and resting his head on his hand. Yet again, he had lost all concept of time, and the consequences showed as his eyes began to glass over with the sweet promise of sleep hot on their heels. Not yet. He still had to decipher the Latin passage that he hadn’t been able to translate earlier that week, and try to connect the ancient illustrations in the 18th book he had ‘borrowed’ to the ooze that had formed from the ground and seemed to absorb everything that day, and do a million other things that he was rapidly forgetting the more his brain began to shut down and his body began to lose all its tension.

Before he could feel himself fall, he crashed onto the walnut hardwood floor and heard the dining chair he had previously been sitting on tumble down along with him, one of his feet caught in between two of its grooves and his head throbbing with the first bit of physical pain he had actually felt in days. A lone book had toppled from the stack that stood next to him and onto his torso with a dull ‘oomf’, seeming to remind Dean that he still had work to do whether he was exhausted or not, and with a groan, he sat up and flicked through its pages with an absent mind and a steadily emptying will to stay up any longer. More than anything, he finally found himself wanting to go to sleep- which he was both more than ready for and needlessly ashamed of- but he wanted to at least explore one more lead until he succumbed to the sensation of sleep that his body had rudely told him it needed.

He let the pages stroke through his fingertips as they flapped from cover to cover, his eyes nonchalantly grazing over the pages until one caught his attention. The text was handwritten, slightly faded and messy, and normally Dean would have just ignored it completely, but it was the crude drawing tucked away in the corner of the page that caused his ears to perk up and his spine to stiffen against the bedframe he leaned up against. It was almost identical to the image of sleek black ooze that had taken up shop in Dean’s mind for the past weeks, and the uncanny resemblance struck a shiver in his back that refused to go away until he read more of the page. He was staring at a lead, his first lead, and sleep suddenly held little importance anymore. As quickly and carefully as he could, he read the words the book contained within itself and put a hand to his mouth in nothing but sheer shock. This…was it. What he had been looking for. What he had needed. 

He had found a way into The Empty.

Some of the ink had faded and splatters of an unknown, brown material stained parts of the page, but the words were still legible- and most importantly, the drawing of the summoning circle on the second page was too. It all still made sense, much to Dean’s joy after reading nothing but Latin incantations for hours on end, and he read the steps over and over again until he could confirm himself that it was real, and not just a hallucination caused by a lack of everything he needed to survive that failed to exist in his system.

**The ooze is dark, and looming. Opaque, smelling of burning sulfur, both warm and cold to touch. Burns if felt too long, pain equating to that of exposure to acid.**

**Verbal and material elements are required to summon, but nearly impossible to acquire. Especially difficult to contain in same space for summoning circle. Only works for one person.**

**Elements required include person who will travel, powdered calcite, powdered lapis lazuli, ground henbane, labdanum oil and lotus flower ash, along with Grim Reaper, Angel, virgin’s blood, bleeding heart, and large body of water (preferably lake or pond). Grim Reaper must recite the known verbal commands needed to summon It, along with blood of the angel and beating heart, with the traveler centered atop summoning circle (fig.2)** **. Takes effect immediately, and time in realm varies depending on time and location.**

**Not guaranteed to work.**

The ‘elements’ alone were enough to make Dean’s hands shake the further he went along the list, with each one getting more outrageous than the last, but none of it managed to terrify him as much as the last sentence that he read. Not guaranteed to work. Even if Dean managed to get everything he needed, which was already admittedly impossible, there was no way of being able to tell if he would be able to enter The Empty and come back out alive. It was risky, it was stupid, and any normal person would run away from both the book and the opportunity screaming. But Dean wasn’t normal anymore, and something told him that he never would be. He was desperate now, and needy, and relying on nothing but the possibility of being able to see _him_ one last time to get through the day. He hadn’t lived since he had died, and Dean would do anything it took just to be able to smile again. To be able to feel the air enter his lungs with each breath he took and see color in places that had become devoid of it. That included jumping into Hell, flying into Heaven, or floating in The Empty- and that included taking impossible risks, too.

Scrambling like a madman from the dining room table to the backpack that lie slumped over in the corner of the room, Dean snatched a phone from its front pocket and turned it on. He didn’t wait for it to finish restarting before he dialed the only number he kept memorized into the keypad and pressed ‘call’ faster than he ever had in his life, his heart racing and his body shivering as the dial tones grew longer and longer. Sam had to pick up. He had to hear what he had found. He had to know that there was a way to bring him back. Even if he didn’t understand, or didn’t care, or didn’t want to care, Dean had to tell someone, anyone, that he had finally managed to take a step in the right direction after running into so many dead ends. He needed to tell his brother, as much as he didn’t want to, that he was done searching for what he thought was already impossible to find. He needed his help, too.

The line clicked as the other man answered the phone from hundreds of miles away, his voice thick and raspy with the remnants of rest still sharp on its tongue. “Yeah? Who- Who is it?”

“Sam.”

There was a rustling on the other end as Sam moved about on his bed, and Dean could hear a light flick on in the background. “Dean? Dean-- thank _fuck--_ where are you? Why haven’t you called? What-”

“I found a way to get him back.”

He didn’t need to say his name for the both of them to understand who he was referring to, which was a fact that he was all too grateful for, and he heard Sam’s voice rumble as his slow sigh transformed into a quiet groan.

“Dean-”

“Don’t, Sam. I don’t need to hear a lecture, right now.” Dean lifted a hand in the air as if Sam could see it and took a shaky breath, feeling ants of anxiety crawl up and down his veins. “I found it. In some old, dingy book, I found it. And it’s the only chance I have, and I’m taking it.” The words came out slowly, though they increased their tempo the more time went on, and he tried as hard as he could to make sure Sam could hear the decisiveness that was laced in each and every sentence he spoke.

“If we can just talk, if you could just tell me where you are--”

“I don’t need to talk, dammit!” He was getting too excited, too angry, too everything, and it showed in the way he yelled into the phone. “I just… I need to do this. I’m going to do this. I don’t have a choice.”

“You always have a choice, Dean. We always have a choice.”

Dean chuckled, biting his knuckles, tensing his body and resting his head against the wall. “Not this time, Sammy.”

The two sat on the line for what felt like hours in a dead silence, empty and hoarse but somehow managing to speak louder and express more than what their words could ever say. 

The choice had been made and the line had been crossed, which Dean had been all too quick to determine, and he could tell that Sam wasn’t going to stop him. He could tell that Sam knew he _couldn’t_ stop him. Living alone, without _him_ , without _his_ smile, and _his_ conversation, and _his_ presence, and _his_ love, Dean was nothing. It had taken him too long to realize that, too long to let the fact register in his mind, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to survive in a reality where he could never hear him say he loved him again. Where he could never tell him that he felt the same way again. It was a Greek Tragedy, long, winding, and disgustingly deprecating, but Dean was going to see it through to the end. Because if facing the end of all life and all things meant that he could see his angel one more time, then it would all be worth it.

“What do you need, Dean?” Sam asked in a silent murmur, sounding less like the man he had become and the little brother he used to be. 

“ I need— I need you, Sam.” He admitted, squeezing his eyes shut and clenching the phone so tightly he was certain he would break it. “I never wanted to put you in all this, just for me, but I need your help. And I know it’s selfish, and I know that I shouldn’t, but--”

“Tell me what you need, and I’ll tell you where to meet me.” Sam interrupted. “I don’t care where, or what, or why, or how, or anything about the bullshit you say you should and shouldn’t do. You’re my brother, Dean.”

“Yeah.” It was all Dean could say to keep scalding tears from rushing down his face and worrying his brother anymore than he already had. 

“Get some sleep. I’ll see you soon.”

“...Yeah, alright.”

The phone clicked, and Dean finally let the tears cascade down his cheeks and onto his blue jeans, holding onto his knees and feeling himself break from the inside out. He was one step closer.

~~

He had fallen asleep in that same curled position, too drained to climb into bed after collapsing under the weight of his own exhaustion, grief and uncertainty, but he felt better than he had in days when he woke up in the later hours of the morning and stretched out on the floor. The text message of elements needed was sent to Sam at some point during the night, though he didn’t remember when or how he had sent it, and Sam quickly responded with an address in Ellijay, Georgia that would ideally have most of the ‘easier to obtain’ items they needed to perform the ritual. For a split second, he thanked his lucky stars that he had a brother like Sam to rely on, but he pushed the thought away just as quickly. Sam wasn’t supposed to be helping him with something he should have nothing to do with, with an Emptiness so deep and dangerous that it managed to rip Dean in half without even having touched him at all. But this was who they were, and no matter how much Dean tried to live without needing or burdening anyone anymore, he would always need his little brother whenever it came to a hunt like this. At least for now.

There was no use in waiting around, sitting and stopping like time would magically reverse to a happier point, and Dean groaned with the creaking of his bones as he stood up from the floor and began to pack in preparation for the road ahead. He made sure to put each book back into the brown duffel bag he carried with meticulous grace, taking extra care with that one book, in particular, and began to leave the hotel for the ride out to West Point. It was only a matter of time until the ritual would commence, at least, that's what he told himself, and he looked to the day it would all be over with a shine in his eyes he was once convinced would never come to see the light of day again. In his own little way, silently and subtly, he tried to tell himself that everything would be alright. He knew it wouldn’t matter, because it would never be alright until _he_ was back in the world with him, but he relaxed a bit when he realized that the affirming thought had gotten just a bit more believable for him.

Just a bit.

Dean wasted no time in checking out from the near-empty motel and took long strides towards the familiar black Chevrolet Impala, preparing to put the tires to cold asphalt yet again until he reached the southern city. He let his hand settle on the door handle and remain there for a while, feeling the cold air nip at his lungs as he took a long breath and let it escape, and he gave a final nod to no one when he at last opened the driver’s door. This was the only way he could make it up to him, make it up to Sam, make it up to himself- and everything he did from this point on would be for that goal and that goal alone. 

Climbing into the seat, jamming the engine key into the ignition and hearing the same mighty, steady grumble from the car’s engine, Dean pulled off from the motel’s driveway and onto the highway with a screech. And with that, he was off, leaving the thought of a past, future or present without _him_ to die in the empty room with the golden number 17 dangling from the front door and threatening to crash onto the concrete.

Fleetwood Mac eased from the car radio, sending warm vibrations and bouncing from the four metal doors that enclosed him in the space, and Dean’s eyes only strayed from the street long enough to turn the song up and keep him from thinking anymore about what he needed to do and what he would do if the plan didn’t work. Gripping the leather steering wheel and riding past the well-known wooded scenery, he focused only on the music and let his mind stop working just long enough for him to pay attention to the lyrics that floated through the speakers.

_Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night_

_And wouldn't you love to love her?_

_Takes to the sky like a bird in flight_

_And who will be her lover?_

_All your life you've never seen_

_A woman taken by the wind_

_Would you stay if she promised you heaven?_

_Will you ever win?_

Time had no meaning whenever _he_ was with him, whenever the two of them killed monsters and saved innocent people together. When he heard that voice, scratchy and innocent but always finding a way to pierce his soul and leaving his head a muddled mess, life was worth living again. Sam was his only brother, and Dean loved him, but _he_ held a piece of his heart so vital that whenever he wasn’t around, it ceased to function entirely. He loved just being with him, talking to him, and hearing him, and seeing him, and over time, he was taken over completely with the feeling of a love so overpoweringly strong that it made his ears ring and his face flush. He was his everything, and Dean was convinced that he had been since the day they met.

His angel, perfect and warm, was all Dean could ever want and ever need in his life, and even when the song had ended and bland commercials had taken its place, the whisper of the melody and the low utterance of the lyrics somehow still rang out as loudly as they had before. _He_ was taken by the wind and promising him a heaven he never once thought he could have before, and there was nothing more he wanted to do than to put his hands on his face and pull him close, relishing in a kiss that they had denied themselves for too long. He couldn’t resist the chuckle that bubbled in his throat at the thought, feeling the irony of the situation like a curling iron on his neck and clenching his jaw at the reality of the situation. The one song Dean had tried to listen to so he could stop thinking was the one thing that made him think the most, all about things he had once declared he never wanted in his life. His entire life was a walking paradox, a cruel joke without a punchline, but he laughed anyway. It was all he could do to keep himself from crying again.

The hours passed in a boring repetition, going one after the next until 12 of them had passed, and it wasn’t until the sun had begun to fall back down into the sky that Dean took notice of the green ‘Welcome to West Point, GA’ street sign that stood faded and half-broken on the left side of the road. Grabbing his phone from the passenger’s seat and dialing Sam’s number again, he heard the line click much faster as his brother’s voice echoed from the other side. 

“Dean?” 

“I’m here.”

There was a breath, a sigh of relief that made him feel guilty. “I thought for a second that you wouldn’t show up.”

“I told you that I needed you, Sam.”

“I know Dean, I know. I just…”

_I didn’t think you meant it._

Dean could hear the explanation clearly, though it was never completely vocalized, and cleared his throat against the sound of dead air that had again collapsed on the line between them. “Where are you?”

“I’m by a diner- Patsy’s, I think it’s called.” There was a sound of rustling as Sam turned around to confirm the name. “Yeah, Patsy’s. Do you need directions?” 

“I’ll look it up on the next stoplight.”

“Alright- yeah, sure.” Sam sputtered. “...Are you alright, Dean?”

Dean paused, trying to think of the best words to use. “I’m feeling better than I have been in months.”

“Good. That’s… That’s good.” 

There was another moment of silence, until Sam decided to speak up one last time.

“Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“I missed you, brother.”

“...I’ll see you in a second.”

_Click._


	2. You See Your Gypsy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean finally reunites with his brother and chooses to put aside the thought of making easy conversation in favor of the priority of formulating how to get *him* back. A passive aggressive argument and tons of apologizing ensues.

Dean searched the location of the diner up on his phone, just as he said he would, and drove to the southern restaurant in a matter of minutes. He didn’t know how Sam would react when he finally saw him again, or how he’d feel when he heard the dryness of his voice, but he wouldn't blame his little brother if he hated him now— because he’d feel the same way if he was in Sam’s shoes. Out of nowhere Dean had disappeared for months, without leaving so much as a note, and only called back when he ‘needed’ him. It was enough to piss anyone off, and just the mental image of Sam’s look of disgust whenever he walked into the diner was realistic enough to make Dean’s palms break into a cold and clammy sweat. There was no excuse for what he did, how he _left_ , and the thought of everything going back to how it was before seemed like it would be nothing but a pipe dream.

But as usual, life was never like what it seemed to be, and as Dean walked into the shop and heard the silver bell ring overhead, he was met immediately with the hug of a man he had nearly forgotten the face of. With a strong hold, Sam had his arms wrapped around Dean’s back and held him close, and he felt a small smile cross his face as he followed suit and did the same. Seeing his brother again was good, was great, was refreshing, but had an air of shameful regret about it that made the moment less than what he wanted it to be. Did he deserve this type of attention? Even after leaving like he did, and failing him, and putting his brother through a worry that still hadn’t completely faded? Sam must have thought so, because as he pulled away from Dean slowly and patted off the dust that had drifted onto his shoulders, he chuckled at the sight of his older brother’s face and gave a contented grin. 

“You look like shit, Dean.” He laughed, the insult nothing but a facade that held his true emotions in its subtext.

“When have I not? It’s a style.”

“Yeah, right-- ‘style’ my ass.” Sam scoffed. “When was the last time you _slept_?”

“I’d rather not style your ass, thank you very much, and I slept last night.” Dean replied, the sly sarcasm nearly dripping off of his tongue as he made his snide little remarks.

“Alright then, smartass. When was the last time you slept longer than 4 hours?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Fucking hell, Dean.” Sam said, running a hand through his wavy hair. He was worried, and that was obvious, but for some reason, the smile never fell from his face. Dean couldn’t say much about it, though, because he was the exact same way.

“Come on. You look as skinny as a damn beanpole-- let’s get you something to eat.” He grabbed Dean’s shoulder and began to lead him to a small booth tucked away in the corner, giving an awkwardly curt nod to the waitress that stood behind the counter as an apology for standing in the doorway for so long. 

“And talk about the list.” Dean reminded him.

Sam stopped in his tracks, but continued just as quickly. “Yeah, Dean. The list.” 

Dean sat across from Sam in the small seating booth, grunting at the unexpected cushioning, and rolled his eyes as he heard a snicker from the other side of the table. It almost felt normal, how they bickered over food choices and called each other ‘copycats’ when they ordered the same thing, or how they laughed and talked about whatever came to mind without feeling like a certain topic was sacred or a certain thought was taboo. He was nearly normal again, which was something he had slowly forgotten the feeling of the more the days dragged on, and it was like an isolated breath of fresh air that existed in the sleek black ocean he was slowly but steadily drowning in. If he tried hard enough, focused his attention solely on his brother and let himself stop thinking completely, he could almost forget the gaping gap in his chest that had left his life without meaning for the past months. Almost, he realized, but not _quite-_ and with his mind quickly disillusioned, he slammed the book from the motel on the dining table just as their food arrived.

“Back on topic, Sam.”

Sam jumped at the echoing sound with a limp french fry dangling from his hand, his eyes widening with the sight of the ragged journal. “Are you sure you should be throwing that around? It looks like it’s on its last leg as is.”

“Ha. Ha. Ha.” Dean’s voice was monotonous. “Just look at the thing.” 

At the sight of Dean’s impassive expression, Sam sobered up, straightening in his seat and pushing his plate of food aside. Dean appreciated his loyalty, though he said nothing at all to acknowledge it, and he flipped to the dog-eared page with a routine ease while preparing to discuss the shortcomings of the instructions. It was what he was there for, what they were there together for, and the rest of their ‘normal’ conversation would have to wait for another time- a time when _he_ was around to share his input, too. Until then, they didn’t have any more time to waste.

“I sent you the basics last night- the Lapis Lazuli, and the Calcite, and the henbane, and the other boring shit. I didn’t bother to send you the rest of it.”

“I can see why.” Sam peered over the table and flipped the book around so he could better read the rest of the ingredients, gnawing on his thumb nail as he rested his elbow on the table. “A bleeding heart? A Grim Reaper? A fucking _Angel_? Do those even exist, anymore? Even if this was real--”

“It is.” Dean interjected, quickly pointing at the faded picture that had caught his attention in the motel originally. “That’s just like what I saw when it happened, Sam. The smoke, and the bubbles, and the ooze, everything. The author even has the written description of it down to a damn science.”

Sam’s eyes narrowed as he continued. “That doesn’t make the ‘elements’ any easier to get, Dean. It doesn’t make any of this make any more sense, either. ‘Not guaranteed to work’? ‘Difficult to contain in the same space’? This is a guaranteed crap-fest that we’re walking into, don’t you get it?”

“I know, I _know_. I already thought about it, over and over again.” Dean confessed, hanging his head low to the ground and clenching his jaw. “But I can’t-- I won’t let this chance slip past without even trying to go through with it, Sam. I don’t have anything to lose, anymore.”

With a heavy, dry swallow, Sam tried to push the book away and looked Dean straight in the eyes-- in a way that let him know controversy was soon to follow in the next words his brother spoke.

“Have you ever, while you were away, considered the possibility that… maybe Cas wouldn’t want you to try at all?”

Did Sam really have the audacity to ask such a stupid question with a straight face? To look him in the eyes and suggest that _he_ would want to be nothing but an assimilated mess in an afterlife he was never supposed to be in in the first place, that he would be happy in a plane like that just because it was ‘best’? He didn’t belong there, in The Empty, or The End, or whatever they wanted to call it, and Dean knew he didn’t. He couldn’t explain how or why he knew, but he did, and he heard those subtle cries for help seep from the walls and step into his ears every single minute he spent alive and moving. Hell, even if in some fucked-up turn of events he _did_ want Dean to accept his death, it was impossible anyway. Dean could never accept what had happened in that small cramped room, what he saw as he laid slumped on the cold linoleum tile and watched his life disintegrate piece by piece, and it was obvious by his newly sunken eyes and his tired face, by his weakened body and his hoarse voice. Dean couldn’t help but try, because he knew that trying was the only thing he could do to keep himself from giving up entirely. 

But above all of that, Dean couldn’t help but try, because he was certain that it was what _he_ wanted.

He could have done a million things to Sam in that moment, like scream, or shout, or throw a punch filled with all of the fury he had been keeping hidden in the depths of his soul, but he decided to turn his attention to the cars that passed by and answer Sam’s question with his own, instead.

“Would you say the same thing if it was Eileen we were saving?”

Sam’s face paled at that, and he grit his teeth before staring back at Dean with an empty glare.

“That’s not fair, Dean.”

“I know.” Dean rubbed his face and avoided Sam’s face, keeping his eye on the window. “Shit, I’m sorry. I just--”

“Leave it alone. I got your point.” 

The air suddenly tensed up, formal and foreign, and Dean continued to stare out of the window as Sam ate the rest of his food and tried to formulate a plan to get the rest of the elements they needed. It was effective, in its own, strange way, but Dean could tell that he’d caused a tear in the previously happy mood the two had shared earlier that day, and he hated it. He hadn’t meant to, which he already knew was a flimsy excuse, but every time he snuck a glance at his brother’s steadily deepening frown lines, he still managed to feel worse. Like he was an inconvenience, a mess of instability that he never was supposed to be in the first place, a shadow of the person who he used to be. This was why he left originally, why he cut off all ties and ran away with his tail between his legs- because he knew that he would ultimately fuck everything up in the same way he ad for the past few months. It had all started with that day, it continued with the fight with Chuck, and it showed no signs of stopping. 

It was all he seemed to be able to do for their relationship at this point, cause rifts, and tears, and cracks and breaks, but he didn’t know how to fix what had been damaged- or protect what was still in a halfway decent condition. So he chose not to say anything, anymore, until Sam initiated a new conversation over a half hour later.

“I found a place that has the materials.”

“Those are everywhere, Sammy.” Dean joked half-heartedly. “They’re called holistic shops.” 

“Yeah, but this shop... its-- its different. There’s supposedly a medium who owns it that can ‘direct you to whatever it is that you cannot find’, whatever that means.” Sam said, reading from the tourism guide that popped up on his phone and raising a brow once the meaning of the words registered.

“Can we even trust a ‘medium’ that owns a holistic store in the middle of nowhere?” He gestured around. “We’ve already encountered our fair share of frauds, you know.”

“You said yourself that you didn’t have anything to lose anymore.”

“I did, didn’t I?” Dean bit his lip and cleared his throat. “I did.” 

“I say we check it out. There’s no harm in seeing what it could lead to.”

Dean drummed his fingers on the table, agreeing with the idea. “Worst case scenario is that we lose a few minutes of our time.”

Sam nodded as they silently agreed to go ahead with the plan, and he paid for their food with a gentle smile to the waitress before the two of them stood and walked towards the parking lot. 

“So I’ll follow you there, and then we’ll reconvene in another city after I’ve gotten what I need?” Dean asked, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he walked down the sidewalk.

“Where… do you think we’re going?”

“To the holistic shop. Duh.” He said the answer like it was obvious.

“It's 9pm, Dean. The place is _closed_.”

Dean’s mouth formed into an ‘O’ shape, and Sam chortled with the roll of his eyes. “Come with me. I rented out a hotel last night in case something like this happened- it should be big enough for the both of us.”

“You’re just as analytical as always, Sam.”

“One of us has to be.”

The two of them rode in their separate cars to the hotel once their time at the diner had ended, Dean’s impala hovering on the bumper of Sam’s red pickup truck, and he witnessed the sun disappear and the moon take its place as they reached the building. It was called the ‘Days End’, amusedly, and it was a ways away from the broken down motel rooms and bumpy driveways Dean was slowly getting used to. The lobby was surprisingly nice for being in a town that he had never heard of, too, being sparkling clean and smelling of freshly peeled oranges, and Sam received his room key with no issue before the two of them clambered into the tight elevator and took the short ride up to the room they would be spending the night in. Thank Christ- Dean had been aching for a shower after being cramped up in the car for most of the day.

“Here we are- room 205.” Sam jabbed the keycard into the lock with a sharp click, swinging the door open. Before they could settle into the hotel room, Sam snapped and muttered a few curses under his breath, grabbing his wallet suddenly from his bag and turning back around towards the door. “I forgot to get something on the way here- a celebratory gift. I’ll be back in a second.”

 _A celebratory gift? For what?_ Dean chose not to think about it as he felt that he already knew the answer, watching Sam’s back get smaller and smaller until it ultimately disappeared behind the white hotel door, and instead went right back into the routine he had been planning for himself ever since he first stepped into the lobby. 

He wasted no time in getting up and taking a shower, feeling the hot water hit against his body and the steam kiss his face, and his shoulders eased their tension as soap bubbles smelling of clean linen slid down his worn, pale muscles and poured down the drain. He couldn’t remember the last time he could take a shower without feeling like he had a time limit, a short window of opportunity he could bathe for until he had to hit the road again in search of answers, and so he relished in the feeling of the water splashing against his neck and falling on every part of him with a newfound appreciation. Carefully running the bar of soap over the age-old scars on his arms, legs and chest, he sighed and decided to take his time in appreciating the godlike invention that was a six-spray showerhead. When he noticed his fingers pruned up, he took it as an incentive to leave and bent down to turn the water off, stepping out from the bathtub and feeling the fluff of the bathroom rug under his feet as he dried off and put on more comfortable clothes for the night ahead.

When he opened the door of the bathroom, smelling of cologne and feeling fresher than ever, he saw a 6-pack of his favorite beer sitting out on the table. He noticed Sam back from his ‘trip’ and preparing to go into the shower after Dean did, with his clothes in hand, and whistled at just how long he had been in the bathroom. Time flies when you’re not pressuring yourself to find a way to save your long time lover from the afterlife, he guessed.

“Took you long enough- what, did you have a mental breakdown in there?”

“No, that was last night. You missed it just by a couple of hours.” Dean pried his eyes from the case just long enough to turn back to Sam and smirk.

Sam clicked his tongue and shook his head, brushing past Dean with a laugh. “You’d just better not have used up all of the hot water, Dean. I know that for sure.”

“No promises!” Dean called out after him, but he heard the bathroom door shut mid-sentence. 

Grabbing a beer from the case and putting the rest of them in the refrigerator, Dean twisted off the cap and took a long swig, staring at the late night sky and noticing the stars twinkle in the air with a pensive eye. 

Fuck, it felt so nice to be with his brother again. To be with anybody again, after being alone for so long with nothing but the empty silence and the winding streets to keep him company. He felt a warmth in his heart that he didn’t think he should have had and looked down at his still wrinkled hand, clenching his fist with a forlorn expression and wondering what he had done to get Sam to still find a way to put up with him even after all of these years. Sam was just happy to be with his brother, Dean realized, and instead, he had just been so focused on rescuing _him_ that he couldn’t even take the time to appreciate the family he had left. Living was like a double edged sword at this point, too afraid to stop thinking about _him_ one minute and then regretting how he refused to open his eyes to the world around him the next. How Sam was able to look past that fact and still celebrate their reunion with a pack of his favorite beer was a question that had no answer Dean could have possibly come up with in that moment, and the minute he heard the door open and watched his brother step out of the door, he tried to apologize and show his appreciation simultaneously.

“I’m sorry, Sam. And uh, thanks for the beers.”

“If it's about earlier today, its fine.” Sam shrugged it off nonchalantly, in a way that Dean didn’t quite believe, and he wiped off his hair with a small towel as he sat down on one of the beds. ”And I told you- it's a celebratory gift. I’m just glad to see you getting back to your normal self, and doing better.”

“I meant in general.” Dean didn’t respond to his second statement, taking a drag from his beer and setting it on the table with a clink against the marbled coaster. “For months, I’ve been nothing but a bitch to you, and you didn’t deserve any of it. Hell, you don’t deserve to put up with the shit I’m putting you through _now_.”

“We’ve been through a lot, Dean. I’ve put you through shit just like you’ve put me through shit- it's just what we do. Part of the trade.” Sam laughed and tossed his towel into his duffel bag, shuffling around in it for something else he needed for his ‘nightly routine’.

“Maybe, but it's never been like this.” Dean murmured. “And this mission especially… won’t be like anything we’ve ever dealt with before.”

“What’s the _matter_ with you, all of a sudden?” Sam turned around suddenly, walking over to the table and sitting down next to him. He wore another look of concern, the worry in his eyes shining against the moonlight to be seen in full display, and Dean felt himself tense as he took note of it. It must have finally clicked in Sam’s mind that Dean knew more than he let on, and he dreaded having to answer the question that would inevitably be asked. Just to prepare himself, he took another swig of his alcohol and felt a heavy exhale blow through his nose. 

“What else happened in that room, back then? When Cas- when _he-_ was taken? What’s making you like this? In advance, I already know it's not just because you miss him.”

There were a million explanations he could have given, and all of them would have been halfway true. He could have told Sam the most obvious reason, the reason that had caused him the most pain, the reason that said _he_ was gone and Dean simply couldn’t take it. He could have given him a better, less obvious reason too, one that said he just wanted to tell _him_ that he loved him back and feel his body next to his for the rest of their time on Earth. He could have said that it was just because he was sensitive, or because he was angry, or because he didn’t know how to feel so he just felt everything. Dean could have lied, he could have omitted the truth, he could have done anything and it would have all answered Sam’s question without actually telling the entire story and burdening him with the added information-- because ignorance was bliss, and Dean wanted to keep it that way for as long as he could. But when he stared up at his brother and saw those eyes of sorrowful curiosity looking back, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to keep himself from telling Sam the complete story, no matter how much he wanted to keep Sam far away from the situation and no matter how much he wanted to shoulder the burden alone.

“When the gateway opened, and as he was falling into the darkness, I...I saw a face behind him.” Dean felt his heart begin to race in his chest as he relived the moment, closing his eyes and seeing every detail just as clearly as he had back then. “It was smiling at me, taunting me with yellow eyes, wrapping its fingers around his neck and telling me to come find him. It told me to jump in _with_ him, but before I could stand up, the portal closed.”

“Did you… recognize who it was, by chance?”

“I recognized him, alright.” Dean chuckled, shaking his head and tapping the table. “It was Ephraim.”

“As in… Joseph’s son, Ephraim? The angel that was _stabbed to death_?” Sam sputtered, immediately standing up to get a beer for himself. Dean should have warned him beforehand that there was no way he could have handled this sober.

“The one and only.”

“But… that doesn’t make sense. He’s dead.”

“Supposed to be.” Dean corrected, taking a sip of his beer and pointing the glass bottle at his brother sharply.

“Maybe--” Sam grunted as he sat back down, opening his bottle of beer before speaking again. “Maybe it’s just a mirage. Like a human illusion that The Empty designed for you to see, or something.”

“Even if that was the case, then why would it want me to jump in and follow it? What could an afterlife designed for Angels want with a mortal, unless it had a grudge?”

“Well did you piss off any black ooze, lately?”

When the older Winchester didn’t respond, Sam put his hands in the air defensively. “That was in bad taste.”

Dean nodded in agreement, and took another swallow of his own beer with a groan. “It can only be him, Sam. I don’t know how, but there’s no other possible explanation. Ephraim wants me to go into The Empty--and he knows that I will-- because he has _him_.”

Sam went quiet, taking another drink and flinging his hand in the air like the waving of a white flag. “...Well, shit.”

“Agreed.”

“I guess we’re fighting another angel to get yours back, then.”

He almost corrected him, saying that the only one who would be fighting Ephraim would be Dean himself, but he kept his mouth shut and saved it for later. It would be funnier to mention, or rather rub in his brother’s face, after the fight was over. “We just might be, Sam. We just might be.”

They sat together like that, watching the night go by for a while and just enjoying each other’s company as they exchanged small tokens of conversation between each other (including a particularly hilarious exchange about the newest works Chuck had written now that he was stripped of his Godhood), until Sam had yawned one too many times and Dean had felt himself nod off mid-conversation. It was quiet, comfortably so, but Dean found himself yearning for the comfort of a mattress and the warmth of a silk comforter draped over him much more than he wanted to stay awake any longer-- and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to tell that Sam was thinking the same thing as his head started to loll back and jerk forward in a constant repetition. 

“I’m going to sleep.” Dean stood from his seat and walked over to one of the twin beds, flopping down on it like a fish into water and nestling in the covers before Sam could even respond.

“Mmm- hmm.” Sam waltzed over to his own bed and laid down, much gentler than his brother had but still with the fervor of a man who wanted to go to sleep and stay that way for as long as possible.

“..Night, Dean.”

“Night, Sam.”

And with that, Dean felt his eyelids close to the sound of the night wind that howled outside of their hotel room and laid thinking of what was to come- of Ephraim, and of the mysterious ‘medium’ that sat mere miles away, and of the ritual, and of _him_. It was all so far away, but still so close, and Dean could almost convince himself that he heard the ticking of a timer hidden within the catacombs of his mind the more he lulled himself to sleep. Just as he felt his mind start to quiet and his body lighten, he whispered the same silent prayer to his angel that he had been ever since they first bid their final farewell.

_Wait for me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, comments and kudos are very much appreciated!


	3. Rock On, Gold Dust Woman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter where the duo meets a fortune teller- and she tells them some fairly interesting new information.

Dean fell into the mattress and into a delightfully deep sleep, dreaming of things he wouldn’t remember by the time the day ended and only waking up when Sam splashed a bit of water on him. And by a bit, it meant an entire glass.

“What the hell was that for?” He immediately sat up and wiped the water from his eyes, coughing wildly due to the water that had sank into his nostrils.

“You wouldn’t wake up when I tried all of the other ways, so I figured that I had to resort to… stronger measures.” Sam pouted, batting his eyelashes and clasping his hands together in the most ‘innocent’ way he could- which for a 24 year old, wasn’t very innocent at all.

“Something tells me that you didn’t try jack shit.” Dean murmured, glaring at Sam’s smug leer. In spite of his earlier protests, he stood up from the bed and wiped down his shirt, flinging the small beads of water onto the carpet and sauntering off to change clothes in the bathroom.

“Hurry up! We have a medium to see today, remember?”

He flipped his brother off, knowing better than anyone that he was right but still angry nonetheless, and closed the door with an irritated grunt. 

After rinsing his face and brushing his teeth, he slipped on his clothes and paid close attention to the faded black palm print that still stained his jacket, resting on his heart and reminding him of who belonged there. Putting his hand on the print- he didn’t feel right calling it a stain- he felt the drumming of his heartbeat under his clothes and clutched at the cloth material, taking a breath and nodding in the mirror with an added layer of resolution in his face. If he waited around any longer, wondering if he could succeed and asking himself if he would even want to see him again, he would only be letting the gap that stood between them grow larger and larger until it could no longer be crossed. He had done enough brooding, enough wallowing, enough crying. Now, it was time to take that first step into the unknown and finally go get him, and that was exactly what he was going to do.

Walking out of the bathroom and flashing Sam a thumbs-up, he grabbed his duffel bag from the doorway and was the first to walk out of the hotel room, Sam hot on his heels as he closed the door behind them and followed him out to the elevator. The medium was around 20 minutes away, in a small and secluded shop that stood just on the outskirts of Talona Mountain, and usually had little to no customers- as indicated by the incredibly lackluster user reviews that were on Google Maps. For a second, Dean doubted that the store was even open based on the picture alone, but when Sam was quick to validate it, he changed his mind. It still didn’t stop him from pointing out how sketchy it looked as they rode the elevator down to the lobby, though.

“It looks like it caught on fire, Sam. Twice.”

“That it does.”

“And what the hell is up with the location, too? By a damn mountain? Is whoever owns this place trying to lure drivers to their dooms or some shit? Are we gonna get chased by some hicktown cannibals?”

“I don’t know- maybe? If we do, I’m letting them eat you first. The shorter ones always have more meat on their bones.”

Dean kicked the back of Sam’s knee, making him buckle on his feet momentarily. “Ha ha ha, you’re so funny. If you weren’t so damn ugly, I’m sure tons of chicks would be stuck on you like a magnet.” He drawled sarcastically.

“Who says they aren’t now?” Sam took his phone from his pocket and dangled it in the air, snatching it away just as Dean went to reach for it. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’ll have you know that I have people clutching at my trousers like rabbits in-”

When Sam had only gotten half-way through his sentence, the elevator dinged and the doors opened- leaving a particularly peckish mother, little girl, and snow white pet rabbit to be completely subject to Sam's haughty brag. When he noticed them he stopped, but the damage had been done, and the sinister beam on Dean’s face indicated that he was fully prepared to make it ten times worse.

“Listen man, I get that you might be happy about your… fruitful sex life, but for future reference- please don’t tell strangers you meet in hotel elevators about it. I don’t even know your damn name, creep.”

The mother gasped at that, pulling both her daughter and the caged family pet away from Sam as Dean walked off of the elevator with a faux huff of disgust, and Sam looked more than mortified as he scrambled out of the elevator right along with him, whispering small apologies to the tiny family of two whose mood he had probably just ruined. Dean had forgotten how good it felt to make his little brother look bad in public, and the reminder gave him an extra pep in his step all while Sam whisper-cried in his ear about how ‘that kid most definitely had almost all of her innocence wiped out now’ and how he ‘couldn’t ever be able to trust him in an elevator again’. _Good times, good times._

Sam checked out of the hotel while Dean waited outside, and was still as red as a beet when he finally walked out through the front door. Dean couldn’t help but snicker just a bit as they both walked onto the lot and back towards the Impala, hearing Sam grumble various profanities under his breath and keep his eyes ahead. He hadn’t noticed until his brother’s hand was on the passenger’s door handle that the red pickup truck Sam had originally been driving in was nowhere in sight, and he swiveled his head back and forth in search of it until he realized that it wasn’t there at all. Much more alarmingly, Sam was acting like it didn’t matter, which was new for the man who Dean was convinced had to have been a constantly worried old grandmother back in a past life. “Uh… Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“Where’s your little red pickup truck?” 

“Oh, that? That wasn’t mine.” Sam said, jiggling the car door handle and heaving an exasperated sigh when he found the door was still locked. “Now open the door.”

“No no, _what?”_

Did Sam just admit to stealing a car and then brush it off like it was nothing? Dean knew he was gone for a while, but this personality change had to have been a tad bit excessive, even for someone who was possessed by Satan himself overnight.

“Relax, it was a rental. I dropped it off last night before I came back with the beers.” Sam clarified, giving him a dead eyed stare, and Dean awkwardly looked away as he unlocked the doors with the turn of his key in the driver’s door, and clambered into the seat with an ‘oomf’.

“I can’t believe you thought I stole a car.” Sam opened the passenger door and nestled into the seat, his seatbelt clicking into place just as Dean pulled off and eased down the street.

“Well, I didn’t think you’d have a rental of all things. You’re such a cheapskate, I just assumed… you know, that you’d adopt the ‘rebel with a cause’ look completely. You’ve already got the Rambo hair, all it would take is a gun and a personality change.”

“Nah,” Sam said, flinging down the sun visor and checking out his face in the mirror. “I just dipped into the ‘Dean’s Pie Fund’ account.”

“You _what_?” Dean snuck an irritated glance Sam’s way, partly wishing that looks really could kill as he wheeled the car around a street corner.

“I didn’t know how long you were going to be gone for!” Sam tried to defend himself, rolling his eyes like it was supposed to be common knowledge. “Plus, with the amount of cash in that account, I knew there was no way you could have eaten that much pie.”

“It wasn’t just for pie, smartass.”

“Then what else was it for, huh?”

“You know.. Dean stuff.” Dean didn’t really have an answer, so he just said the first three examples that came to mind. “Beer, clothes, maybe a sex swing if I felt frisky.”

“Ew?”

“Yeah, ‘ew’ for _you_ .” Dean said pointedly. “That was why it would have been bought with the ‘Dean’s Pie Fund’ account, and not the work one. _Obviously_.”

“...You wouldn’t actually have bought a sex swing, would you?”

Dean sucked his cheek and bit at the skin, moving his jaw back and forth when he realized that his answer was most definitely not one that Sam would have wanted to hear- and the detailed version of that answer was one that would probably leave a stain on their relationship so dark that not even beers and apologies could clear it. “Next subject, Sam.”

“Yeah, that’d probably be best.”

They transitioned to a much lighter subject- dreams- and kept it there until they finally reached their destination, talking about ones they didn’t remember, ones that constantly seemed to make their ways into their minds, and one particular nightmare about an otherwise innocent looking Ronald McDonald commercial. Soon enough, they had finally made it to the mouth of the ominous forest and right to the ‘holistic store’, parking on the dulled gravel that sat a small distance away from the building and exchanging one last look of uncertainty before unbuckling their seatbelts and stepping out of the car. 

To say it looked like trash would be an understatement so large it disrespected garbage everywhere, and if not for the occasionally-glowing ‘OPEN’ sign that hung from one of the broken windows, Dean would have just assumed that the store was completely abandoned. With a roof made of wrinkled, worn and rusted sheets of construction metal, wooden walls that were weather-rotted and permanently stained from old rain and snow storms, and yellow-tinged glass windows with holes in them that were stitched up with age old newspapers from the 90’s, it seemed like it could have been blown to smithereens if someone sneezed too hard- and the thought of someone having an entire business in it seemed impossible. He was only joking when he mentioned the possibility of being hunted and eaten once they got there, but as his eyes darted around and caught nothing but thick fir trees surrounding them, the shop, and the old dirt road the two had driven there on, he suddenly started to think that the thought could have had a little merit to it. He turned to Sam, who looked just as skittish as he did, and groaned. Knowing him, Sam really _would_ let him get eaten first.

Brothers-- you couldn’t live with them, and you couldn’t get sacrificed to redneck cannibals without them.

“Maybe we should just go somewhere that doesn’t look like it’ll crash into rubble the minute we step foot into it.” Dean muttered, still looking back and forth to see if he’d be able to catch a glimpse of an axe murderer.

“I’m telling you Dean, the people who came here said that the medium was life-changing. Life. Changing.” He shoved the phone close to Dean’s face and underlined the words that were on the user review for the shop, and he rolled his eyes with a scoff.

“That’s like three people on the internet, Sam. For all we know, whoever owns this shithole could have just made three email accounts and wrote it his damn self.”

“Honestly, this place doesn’t look like it has an owner that’s especially… internet savvy.”

“Jesus _Christ_.” Dean grimaced as he walked on the shallow combination of gravel and mud that led to the front door of the shop, turning around when he didn’t hear similar crunching footsteps behind him.

“Um, get your ass over here?” He said it more like it was a question than a command, looking confused and feeling a sharp stare at the back of his head from the shop that he painfully ignored.

“Oh, hell no.” Sam laughed, leaning against the car and crossing his arms. “That shack has a car door handle on its front door instead of a doorknob. That’s peak serial killer shit. I’ll just stay out here while you go in there, and… you know-”

“Do what, huh? Knit a lamp?”

“Maybe! It’s on the to-do list.”

Dean pointed to the door and gave a disapproving scowl, watching Sam stand up and begrudgingly walk towards him with a painfully straight face. “Open the door and get in the damn shop.”

“I’m going, I’m going.”

Sam opened the door with a wince, closing an eye as the wooden entrance creaked on its eroded hinges and revealed the soothing but overpowering scent of bayberry oil and freshly lit incense that wafted around the interior of the shop. If not for the ridiculously creepy exterior, the place looked like it genuinely could have been a classy holistic shop- and Dean didn’t know how in the hell that was even possible.

It was dark, only illuminated by the sharp glare of blue light bulbs that sat in four lamps distributed around the corners of the room and the sunlight that sometimes peaked through gaps in the store’s thick black curtains, but every item that was shelved in the shop had a particular glow around it that made them easy to discern and even easier to see the validity of. The music of AC/DC played from a speaker that Dean couldn’t see, circulating through the storefront, and a signed poster of the band was taped messily on the wall by the entrance. When he looked down to the register, he noticed the familiar bayberry oil burning by the register and herby incense smoke wafting out from the beaded door that led to one of the back rooms, and the only things that set it apart from being an otherwise normal shop were the many, many antique dolls that sat charred to a crisp and long broken on the hardwood floor, the sight of dried, splattered blood on the walls that had been only half-way covered up with white spray paint, and the absence of the storekeep himself. Appearances could be deceiving, Dean thought, but not that deceiving-- because the place still sent shudders down his spine.

“Um, hello?” Sam croaked, ringing the silver call bell that sat on the glass display by the back of the store and looking around for anybody to respond. When he didn’t get an answer, Dean nudged him, nodding his head down to the phone. “The shop description had the owner’s name under it, right? See if he’ll respond when you call his name.” 

“What, like Beetlejuice?” Sam whispered with a joking grin, but unlocked the phone and skimmed the name of the owner as Dean instructed. “Uh… Mr. Tommy Young? You in here?”

The dolls closest to Dean clattered on top of each other, scattering onto the floor and nearly making him jump out of his skin when one’s severed head tapped his foot. There was a rustling of beads as a slim, tired looking woman eased out of the back room with puffs of smoke following close behind, her slick black hair tied loosely into a bun and her plump lips glazed with a sparking purple lip gloss that shimmered against the low lights around her. If she was the shop’s owner, she sure as hell didn’t look it, and her brown, fox-like eyes and shallow, toothy smile added an entirely new depth to the word unsettling as she leaned against the display counter and nodded with acknowledgement. 

“It’s not good to assume people’s genders.” She drawled, patting down her oversized striped t-shirt as if it would magically make the wrinkles come out of it. “I’m Tommy, the person who you’ve been looking for-- and the owner of the store you just disrespected.”

Sam’s face paled, and if Dean wasn’t so on-edge, he would have laughed at how flustered Sam had gotten. “Shit, I’m um- I’m sorry. About the whole ‘mister’ thing and the uh… other stuff I said.”

Tommy nodded in acknowledgement, taking a cigarette out from an eerily suspicious blue handkerchief she kept in her pocket and offering it to either of them as a sign of goodwill. When they declined, she shrugged haphazardly and lit it with the fire from the burning oil before putting it to her lips and taking a drag. 

“I’m Sam, and this is my brother Dean.” Sam tried to be as polite as he could as Dean watched Tommy warily, quickly deciding to cut to the chase and skip whatever context Sam was fixing his mouth to give.

Taking the book out from his inseam pocket and holding it in the air, he flipped it open to the page on The Empty and set it down on the counter with a plain look, assessing her every move that followed. If she was a hack, she’d show her true colors once she read the elements on the list- and if she wasn’t, they’d get what they wanted from her and go about their merry way with a brand new objective. It was better to just get the information out of the way immediately instead of waste time with long-winded explanations in a room people were most definitely murdered in at one point.

“We heard you were a medium, and we need…”

“Guidance?” 

“Among other things.”

The woman glanced at the page with a low whistle, her eyes widening as she prematurely pushed the half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray and read down the page. “Among other things _indeed_. Are you… sure you should be doing this?”

“Well, it seemed like it would be a fun little vacation.” Dean said sarcastically.

“What my brother meant to say--” Sam jumped back into the conversation “--was that we’re looking for a push in the right direction, and of course, everything else we need. We saw your shop online by chance and decided that you’d be what we needed.”

“So in other words, you came here for no other reason than because you saw this place on _google_? Out of all the other shops you could have chosen?”

“...Yes?”

The woman laughed, clutching her sides and slowly stumbling out from the counter. “That is the dumbest, most totally outrageous logic I’ve ever heard, man!“

Dean tried and failed to keep his own taunting smile under control, too, and Sam rolled his eyes at their pestering. “You know, I remember telling him the exact same thing earlier.”

“Luckily, that flawless logic of yours checks out- I might be able to help you find what you need.” She joked. With quick, excited steps, she guided them to the back room’s doorway and lifted the beads out of the way, gesturing to the table that sat inside of it with a polite sway of her hand. “Come on in, Mr Winchesters. We have work to do.”

Sam walked past her and into the room, making sure to look around for the closest exit just as he always did, and Dean followed hot on his heels. He didn’t notice until he had finally sat down in one of the plush chairs that she called them both by their last names, even though neither of them had told her the information.

“Would any of you like any water? Maybe some Pepsi?” The woman motioned to the white mini fridge that sat by them against the wall, ignoring the multicolored bong that sat on top of it and expecting Dean and Sam to do the same. “Help yourself. I don’t get many customers often, especially not ones on a rescue mission.” Sam decided to open the refrigerator, much to Dean’s concern, and took a small bottle of water as they watched the tall woman move about the space and waited for her to join them at the table.

“Now, for future reference-” Tommy began, clinking and clanking around the room as she grabbed a heavy mason jar filled with bones from the shelf and a piping hot iron spike from the radiator. “-I can’t change the future or the past, I can’t ‘magically astral project’ you anywhere, and I can’t contact the dead, either.” Dean almost laughed at the irony of it all, but chose not to as he watched her sit back down with her items in tow. “All I can do is point you in the right direction with the limited materials that I have and tell you whether or not it’s going to end badly. Capiche?”

“Capiche.” Dean answered.

“Capiche.” Sam repeated.

“Good.”

Tommy pulled open the mason jar and took out the shell of a turtle, setting it out on the table before closing the jar of bones and putting it on the floor, and prepared to begin the divination technique with a heavy sigh that said she had done it countless times before. Using a small, rusted nail to inscribe various symbols and characters on the shell, she made sure everything was properly in place one last time and cracked her knuckles in preparation. “Alright, here we go-”

“Wait, wait a minute.” Dean interjected. “Isn’t the whole… burning turtle bones thing fake?” 

“No, but if I hear you knock my practices or my shop one more time, your teeth will be.” The woman shot back.

“ _Jee-sus._ ” Now it was time for Sam to laugh, low and hearty, and Dean shot him a fiery glower until his brother decided to quiet down.

“Now, where were we?”

Tommy drove the heated iron skewer into the center of the shell and watched the bone crack, small gaps slowly appearing all over it until Tommy released the iron from its place and set it back down on the radiator. Before she began to read, she grabbed a small vial of ink from the table and poured it into the mark the skewer left, watching the black liquid seep into the cracks with a disinterested look. “If you drive west, and go for hours, you’ll see one of the first people you’re looking for- the angel.” She started finally, tracing her manicured finger over the darkened marks in the bone and gnawing at her bottom lip, her eyebrows scrunched as she translated the message. “I’d be careful if I were you, though- it says here that you’re gonna die when you meet them.”

Sam damn near choked on his water. “That we’re gonna _what_?”

“Kidding! Kidding, just yanking your chain.” Tommy’s voice got lower and lower the more she spoke until she was just mumbling with a smile on her face, but she returned to her otherwise serious expression and pushed the shell away. When she didn’t make any other movements or say any other ‘premonition mumbo jumbo’, as Dean affectionately called it, Sam pointed at the turtle shell and flipped his finger back and forth from it to her a few times.

“That’s all you got? Just… ‘west’?”

“Ayup.” She said. “These practices aren’t gonna be case specific, you know. You get what you get, in most cases.”

Sam raised an eyebrow, but stood up. “Then I guess… west it is?”

“Sorry I couldn’t do more.”

“It’s fine, it’s more progress than it was.” Sam sounded frustrated, despite what he said, and he stood up from his chair and moved back towards the entrance. “Come on Dean, let’s go.”

“Go alone.” Tommy’s voice lowered a few octaves, stopping the brothers in their tracks as they looked back at her. When she realized the attention she had gathered, she shook her head and tried to come across as less commandeering. 

“I meant to say that I’ll be borrowing your brother, for a moment. If neither of you mind.”

The two of them looked at each other with an uneasy glance, but agreed to Tommy’s terms anyway as Sam went to grab the herbs, powders and oils and Dean stayed to listen to whatever the woman had to say. He expected her to say something else about their journey, light and easygoing- but the minute Sam left, Tommy’s otherwise carefree attitude melted into one of a forlorn darkness that made the hairs on the nape of Dean’s neck stand. 

“That angel of yours is locked in between heaven and hell, in a place that no one’s ever been to and no one’s ever gotten out of. He’s not even aware that he’s dead, yet.”

Dean’s face turned white as a sheet as the words registered, but he cleared his throat and tried to put on his usual mask of inner confidence as he went for the door. He could already tell this wasn’t a talk he wanted to have, and much less with a stranger he had just met. “Did your little turtle shell tell you that, too?”

Tommy didn’t respond, making him think that there was more to her ‘divination’ trick than she chose to admit, and she gripped Dean’s wrist to keep him in the room. “You’re getting into something you can’t begin to imagine, a journey that’s unknown to almost every being that lives on this Earth. If you go through with this, and you find the rest of the elements you need, you’ll need to already have weighed the consequences. You’ll need to know what it’ll take to get him back, and you’ll need to make up your mind before you make that leap into The Darkness.”

“That’s funny, I thought it was called The Empty. Guess your fortune-telling’s a little off, huh?” He tried to end the conversation then and there, but could tell that it failed when he saw Tommy’s unwavering glare looking back at him.

“It’s _dangerous,_ either way.” She growled, her voice in one of warning. “If you turn back now, you’ll be saving yourself from a world of potential suffering. I’m saying this to help you.” 

_‘It’s dangerous’._

Of course it was dangerous- it was idiotic. Sam had told him that, hell, Dean had told _himself_ that, but there still wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that he would choose to turn back after coming so far. He had ‘weighed the consequences’ already, he had cried over it and he had brooded over it all until the rivers in his eyes ran dry and he could no longer feel the pattering of his heartbeat over the weight of ‘ _what-if_ ’ that had then decided to make its home draped around his back. It was why he had stayed away from Sam for as long as he could, and why he had tried to carry it all himself, and why his life had done a complete 180 away from the traces of normalcy that it once had before. _Because_ it was dangerous. Because he _knew_ it was dangerous. He didn’t need anyone to tell him so, anymore, and he didn’t need anyone to try and dissuade him now that he had finally made his mind up.

Dean now knew the plain facts, that his heart needed to beat beside _his_ , his mind needed to hear _his_ words, and his body needed to feel _his_ touch-- and to appease those needs was worth all of the danger and all of the beauty in the world. 

“Listen. I don’t know who you are, or how in the hell you know what we’re after, and I don’t care, either.” Dean turned towards the shop’s owner and leaned closer down to her face, matching her threatening look with his own and snatching his arm out of her grip. “The only I care about is getting him back, because he’s--”

“All that matters to you?”

Dean smiled, shallow and forced, and distanced himself from her with a gasp of fake surprise. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”

After that the two of them finally stepped out from the backroom and back towards the storefront, Tommy flashing Sam an innocent smile as she rang the more normal items up for checkout, and Dean stared off into space until it was finally time for the two of them to leave.

“Good luck on your journey, Mr. Winchester.” She smiled at Sam, picking up her cigarette from earlier and lighting it again. “And to you, _other_ Mr. Winchester,” Tommy droned, turning her eyes to Dean like a cat to its prey. “I appreciate your patronage, but after today, never come back to my shop again.”

Dean gave a dry chuckle at that, walking out the door and hearing it slam behind him.

Sam immediately asked him what had happened as soon as the door closed, not noticing Dean stop moving momentarily, cursing himself for not staying behind and wondering if Dean was the one who had started what he called ‘the feud’. The more he spoke, the more his words got wilder and wilder, and with the familiar clicking of their seatbelts, they got in the car and rode west- just as the medium had suggested. 

Even though Sam had asked him a variety of questions- some that Dean would have been too happy to answer, he wasn’t listening to any of it. He was much too busy concentrating on the feeling of butterflies that had begun to flutter in his chest after coming face to face with what he considered to be an omen of Death itself. He didn’t tell Sam what he heard her say as that door closed and their conversation ended, mainly because he didn’t want to worry him with what he tried to tell himself was nothing but an empty threat, but the words still rang out in his head like a Sunday Church bell and knocked against his brain until the sheer weight of them tumbled down to the pits of his stomach.

_“After this, it’ll be too late for you, Dean.”_


	4. Run In The Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Sam meet another archangel on earth- but he's nothing like the bible writes him out to be. 
> 
> TW// Suicide warning! Not by a major character, but a TW nonetheless.  
> 

Turns out, ‘West’ was a much more vague answer than Dean and Sam had anticipated- and a much harder direction to follow.

Did they keep going west when they were at a crossroads? Did they plow through ‘Road Work Ahead’ signs and orange cones when a highway was under construction, or did they take a u-turn? Most importantly, how long were they supposed to keep west _for_ , anyway? Until their car ran out of gas, or just whenever they felt like it? For Tommy to be the ‘life-changing medium’ she was supposed to have been, giving out free advice and ominous warnings, she sure as hell didn’t know how to give specific instructions. Dean still tried to follow them the best he could, though, and continued to drive ‘west’ for as long as possible until he noticed the gas light blink on and felt his fingers begin to cramp up against the black threaded patent leather wheel.

“There’s a Gas-N’-Sip right around the corner.” Sam pointed out, noisily sitting up from the passenger’s seat and letting the road map slump down to his lap as he jolted himself awake.

“How observant, coming from the man who was knocked out like two seconds ago.”

“I wasn’t knocked out!” He protested as he folded the map up and put it in the glove compartment. “I was… blinking slowly.”

“Uh-huh.” Dean stopped in front of a random gas pump, squinting and taking note of the bright red ‘7’ that was labeled on the side of the nozzle, and got out of the car with a laugh. “Whatever you say, bucko.”

Sam said something else, probably a shallow retort on how his name wasn’t ‘bucko’, but Dean couldn’t hear it past the rolled up passenger’s seat window and steadily widening distance between them as he walked into the store and went to pay for the gas. Good- maybe while he was away, his brother could realize it was time for him to come up with new material.

“40 on 7, please.” Dean said bluntly the moment he walked up to the register, shuffling in his wallet for the cash and eying a sale on energy drinks in the machine that stood next to him. “And two of these drinks.”

“Cool, anything else?” The cashier croaked, looking at Dean with a nervous expression and an attempt at a warm smile. “A-Also, you don’t really sound like you’re from here. Would you like a road map?”

His hospitality went briefly ignored as his customer looked out of the window and back towards his car, snorting when he saw Sam’s head leaned all the way back in yet another deep sleep. “I’m good on both, thanks.” Dean took out two crisp bills from his wallet and put them in the cashier’s expectant hands. “And I’m not from here- good eye, by the way. I’m just in town to look for some things.”

“Like?”

Christ, this kid was nosy as hell, wasn’t he? Or maybe it was just his attempt at a conversation, something that Dean had become increasingly less used to having with strangers over the past few days. Either way, he still found it a bit unnecessary, and leaned over the counter with a Cheshire grin with the plan to joke written all over his face. “Oh, the usual things.” Dean started to tease. “Virgin blood, a beating heart, a Grim Reaper and an Angel.”

Quickly there was a loud splash from his left, followed by an howling ‘fuckin’ shit’ and a few half-hearted apologies, and Dean snapped his head around to see just what had happened in the otherwise quiet gas station. A plump older man, most definitely in his 80’s but with the mouth of a sailor kneeled on the floor, the knees of his tan pants getting soaked with the neon blue color of the blue raspberry slushie he had just dropped and his hands turning redder by the minute as he tried to scoop what had splattered on the dirty white tile back into the extra large Big Sip cup he had ordered earlier. 

“If you want, I could get you another one.” The other cashier offered, handing him a napkin. 

“No, no I’ll pass.” He threw the cup in the trash and used the napkin to wipe his hands, rubbing the rest of the colored drink off from his thick wire framed glasses before setting the black lenses back on his red, rounded nose. “I… I’m supposed to be watching my figure, anyway. The wife likes me slim, for some reason.” He said the words carefully, like he was treading on uneven territory, and never took his eyes off of Dean’s uncomfortably positioned body. 

Without looking away, he pointed to a small switchblade that sat behind the counter and then to the cashier. “I _will_ take one of those, though- if you please.”

“Really?” She said, not holding back an ounce of her surprise as she grabbed the knife from its display case.

Finally, he turned from Dean and back to his cashier, tossing her a dubiously strained smile and snatching his credit card from his back pocket. “Absolutely.” 

Everything returned to normal, though the hairs on Dean’s arms still refused to go down, and his conversation with his cashier drawled on for a little longer than he would have liked until he heard a shuffling of heavy footsteps make their way towards him, each one louder than the last. “Just for a fair bit of advice in your journey, young man,” The old man said with a nod, stuffing the switchblade down in his pocket and patting the top of Dean’s head with his still sticky hands. “Don’t come down to Lafayette. You won’t find what you’re looking for.”

“Respectfully,” Dean swatted his hand away and grabbed the bag from the counter, already on edge from the eerie familiarity the man gave. “I don’t take advice from strangers. Especially not ones who smell like stale Jolly Ranchers.”

The old man huffed and adjusted his suspenders, sighing before opening the door and walking towards his beaten down van with a strangely irritated look on his face. Thanking the cashier, Dean made way back to his own car soon after, but kept his eyes on the back of the other customer’s head until he had no choice but to sit down in his own seat and turn the car back on. Something about him was...off, but recognizable, and if Dean wasn’t so focused on finding the angel he was looking for, he would have tried to discern what the uneasy feeling in his chest was.

“Where’s the next stop, Sam?” He asked, stepping away from his thoughts and putting his focus back on the more pressing objective that stood ahead of them. “I think I’m gonna go crazy if I stay in this damn position for much longer.”

“Uh…” There was a rustling from his right as Sam went to check the map again, “Lafayette. It’s a few miles up the road.”

“Wait, _seriously_?”

“Yeah. What’s up?”

Dean shook his head, instantly forgetting the millisecond long tension he had felt settle in his body. “Nothing. Just figured it was a weird coincidence.”

“Alright, then.”

It didn’t take long for the two of them to pass the green city sign that read ‘LAFAYETTE’ in bold white letters, meeting the city just as the sun had begun to peek out from over old brick buildings and shine its early morning light on the beaten asphalt roads, and they made a short plan of what they would do until it would inevitably be time for them to get back in the car and ride west again for what felt like the thousandth time. Well- it was a good idea in theory, but by the time the day was mostly over and all of their errands were done, the two of them were dog tired and both agreed over text message that there was no way in hell they’d be able to go on without eating an actual meal and getting a full 8 hours at another cheap motel. It seemed like all they did lately was drive, sleep, theorize and make handy conversations in local diners, when Dean really thought about it, but it was a nice change of pace from the usual ‘hunting missions’ they were always running towards for most of their lives. It was one of the one good things that had come out of the entire shitshow that he called the past 4 months of his existence, to be able to just drive and relax with his brother without having to always _fight_ something, and he’d have to remind himself to thank Chuck for ruining his life when he saw him again.

_Yeah right._ If he did ever see Chuck again, he’d probably just kick his ass one more time for good measure and extra pleasure.

They agreed to meet at a small coffee shop at the center of the city, wanting the quaint silence of it in order to quiet their thoughts and devise another plan for the next few days, and Dean was the first to arrive as he reserved two bar seats for he and his brother. When Sam joined him, the two let their conversation drift right back to the plan to bring _him_ back- and Dean decided to vent out the frustrations he’d been having almost immediately.

“Maybe we should just give up on the whole ‘go west’ idea and use the grim reaper only for the spell, instead. At least then I can just kill myself and get it out of the way.”

An old woman seated next to Dean turned to him with an appalled look on her face, still holding her hot cup of coffee in her hand, and gasped when she was met with a sharp glare from him. He easily tended to forgot that discussing the idea of ‘meeting a grim reaper’ wasn’t really a conversation topic to be had in a public space, but it still pissed him off whenever he attracted the unwanted and worried looks from strangers who had nothing better to do than eavesdrop on conversations.

“No, we have to do this the right way, Dean.” Sam ran a hand through his hair and sighed, asking the waiter for a refill of his coffee and thanking him when he filled his mug back to the brim. “If we don’t use everything that the writer specified, we don’t know where you could end up. Hell, Heaven, Wichita--”

“Wichita?”

Sam grinned. “Its a scary place, what can I say?”

Dean chuckled and took a sip of his latte before returning back to his somber expression. “I don’t see any other choice, Sam. Most of the ones we know have either been murdered or just … disappeared, and you said yourself they probably don’t even exist on earth anymore..”

“I might have been wrong.” Sam admitted slowly- much to the curiosity of his older brother- and shuffled in his backpack, yanking out an old Stanford notebook from years ago and flicking to the end page before slamming it down on the middle of the table. “Check this out.”

“Ooh, pre-law notes from 6 years ago. I’m shaking in my boots about the horrors of ‘defendant clauses’.” Dean mocked with a grin. “It’s alright- we can’t all have vital pieces of information written down on old journal sheets.”

“Other page, jerk.” Sam showed him an old list marked ‘EBA’ on the other side of the notebook, most of the messily written items crossed out behind wobbly lines.

“Back when Cas was here, he told me something. Something that might help us out.”

“He said a lot of things, Sam.” Dean said it like it was obvious, sitting back in his chair.

“Yeah, but not like this.” When Sam’s proposition was met with skepticism, he threw a crumpled up piece of straw paper at him and pointed back down to the page. “Just look at it, hardass.” 

“Gabriel, Uriel, Raphael, Michael-” Dean glanced at the names that were listed, recognizing all of them but not understanding the point of any of them. “Sam, what is this?”

“It’s a list of all the earth-bound angels, a list _he_ wrote to keep track of them all.” Sam explained. “These angels are only ones who are able to stay down here, Dean. The only ones who stay here for _years_ on end.”

“And you didn’t elect to pull out this list earlier?”

“No, because I thought we had already met them all.” Dean laughed at how Sam confessed the answer and felt strange for a bit at the remembrance of the fact that they had already met or killed at least half a dozen heavenly beings in their lifetime. “Either way, pay attention to this last one. The only one that isn’t crossed out.”

Sure enough, Dean looked and saw the last name on the list of angels sitting clean and clear of any penciled lines running through it. “There’s still an angel that we can track down, Dean. We just have to find him.”

“And how do you suggest we do that?”

Sam patted his computer bag and winked. “Well for starters, we stop going west and actually do some research.”

Dean felt strange setting aside what the medium had said in favor of ‘research’, especially after hearing everything she had told him about the dangers of The Empty, but he didn’t say anything about it. He was tired of driving west and getting no answers, and he didn’t want to rely on a string of possibility anymore than he had to. It was ironic, but working in this field of business meant that you had to have some level of skepticism- and trusting the words of some woman in a broken down hut was only going to go so far. 

Still, he couldn’t shake that same uneasiness away, and slowly stood up from his seat with his eyes on the door. “I’m gonna go get some pie for later, I’ll be back.”

“Hello? What happened to doing more research?”

Dean looked down at his brother and nodded. “You’ve got this, it’s fine. Just do what you always do. The shop's right across the street too- it'll only take a sec.”

“Whatever.” Sam rolled his eyes. “I’ll meet you in the car.”

With the signing of the receipt and the artificial ‘thank you’ from the waiter, the two men left to go their separate ways with the plan of hitting the road immediately after Dean got the pie he wanted from the homestyle bakery that sat next door. In minutes, he had ordered, and even sooner, he had paid for what he wanted. He didn’t want to wait for too long, just in case Sam had found something already, and tried to rush out of there as fast as he could, pushing the door open with his back as soon as he got his pie and stepped from the store with his to-go box in hand.

Just as Dean began to walk back towards the impala with his cherry pie and his mood partially restored, he stopped when he heard the inklings of a conversation ducked behind an isolated alleyway with faces hidden by the shadows of the iron fire escapes that hung overhead.

“--ll you, you talkative p--- of shit.” 

“Well yeah, that---ut can we hurry this up, already?”

Dean felt himself frown at the familiarity of the voice he heard and squinted as if it would make him be able to hear it better, remembering it from somewhere but not being able to put a name to the face. He approached the scene with a genuine curiosity as to who it could have been, crossing off names the closer he got to the alley and ending up completely clueless by the time he got close enough to hear the conversation clearly.

It was the old man from the gas station, refreshed in a new set of clothes but still easily recognizable through his reddened nose and wide framed glasses, and as Dean rounded the corner, he saw glimpses of a shorter man dressed in all black who had a gun in his hand and a frown on his face. He still couldn’t hear a few of the words that were exchanged between the two of them, with the older man’s back turned and the younger’s voice in a consistently low grumble, but he heard enough to be concerned. The man was being mugged, held at gunpoint, and was way too calm to be in the situation he was in.

“I get that the sun’s almost down, but you couldn’t wait 5 seconds for the coast to be clear? You really need to better your mugging practices, ‘cause-”

“Shut up and give me your money, or else I’m gonna blow your brains out and take it myself.”

There was a pause, and the mugger waved the gun in the man’s face as if to wake him up. “Hello?”

“Sorry- the minute you said ‘blow your brains out’, my mind went to dirtier places.”

“Alright, that’s it-”

Before Dean could make a move to rescue the old man from his potential mugger, he was blown back by a sudden gust of wind and left to stand helplessly behind him, squinting his eyes at the bright flash of burning white light that now radiated from the otherwise dark street and hearing a petrified scream come from the inside of the alleyway. At most, Dean could see multiple wings protruding from the man’s stomach reflected by shadows on the sides of the wall, but that was it- and he was frozen in his place until the light faded and the scene returned to near normal, with the mugger now stumbled over into the Waste Management dumpster that he once stood in front of.

“Holy hell, man, you just don’t know when to stop, do you? Making my show my face this late at night.” The man puffed with a glare, scolding his mugger like he had just knocked over his favorite cookie jar. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a show to watch. Another Gilmore Girls rerun is coming on at 8.”

The thief whimpered things that couldn’t be understood under his breath and pawed at his newly greyed eyes as he tried desperately to find a way to escape the dumpster he had fallen into, his body trembling like a leaf in winter and his clothes stained with garbage residue. With a laugh, guttural and sadistic, the old man grinned at the sight of it and sighed wistfully, pushing his glasses up onto his nose and acting less like he had witnessed a man be turned into nothing and more like he had just remembered an old joke he had heard ages ago.

“Good luck getting your sight back, by the way. If you can.”

He whistled as he walked off and left his would-be robber in the trash, his bag of donuts in one hand and his cup of coffee in the other, and once again got too lost in his own headspace to notice the mind-blown Dean who stood a distance away with the scene of it all stuck on his mind like a well placed post-it note.

Rushing across the street and throwing the now cold box of pie onto Sam’s lap through the window, Dean hopped over the hood of the car and nestled into the driver’s seat with the fury of a man who had just witnessed a murder. In a way, he had, but Dean wasn’t one to look at things metaphorically. “Jesus, Dean, what’s going on? What happened?” Sam jumped up and turned to his brother with a concerned stare, watching curiously as Dean tousled his hair, put the key in the ignition and tried to figure out a way to explain what he had seen.

“Well, remember when you said you had your little handy dandy list of angels?” He finally said, veering onto the road and rushing to follow after the now certain angel.

“Yeah, what about it?”

“I think I just saw one of ‘em in action.”

“Wait, seriously? Already? Holy _shit_.” Sam said, looking around at the wandering passerby’s and acting like he’d magically be able to pinpoint which of them was the earth-bound archangel. Dean knew he wouldn’t be able to, moreso because he had taken a few left turns in order to make Joel less aware of the fact that he was being followed than because of anything else, but it was fun to watch his head swivel about like a cake on a lazy susan. “That means the medium was right after all.” He continued in a mumble.

Dean didn’t answer Sam’s rhetorical questions, chewing at his bottom lip as he impatiently waited for the stoplight to change, and pointed to the brown backpack that sat at his brother’s feet. “What did you say his name was again? The- the last one?”

Flipping back to the page of the journal just as the car revved back to a start, Sam pointed at the last name that wasn’t crossed out and cleared his throat.

“...Joel.”

After 15 minutes of tailing the angel around suburban street corners and bright public storefronts, they stopped in front of an otherwise unsuspecting bungalow and parked just across the street from it, watching him walk up the steps onto the patio and finally close the red front door behind him with the hum of an old church hymn. The sun had finally gone down, leaving hundreds of bright stars behind it, and that was more than enough of a sign for the two brothers to make their move. It felt almost criminal, but Dean knew that the lines of good and evil were always blurred whenever they were dealing with Archangels of this caliber. He knew it when they met Gabriel, and he _understood_ it when he killed Ephraim- the first time, at least.

Hiking up the steps soon after he deemed the coast to be clear and glancing into the multi-paned window through the gap in the ugly floral curtains, he confirmed the person in the living room to be the man he was looking for and pointed at him for Sam to see. “Alright- that’s the guy. You ready?”

Sam peered in after him just as he silently instructed, his eyes widening at the sight of the otherwise innocent man who was half an episode into Gilmore Girls, and turned to Dean with a bewildered stare. “He looks like a regular old man to me, Dean- are you sure he’s the angel you think he is, and not just fuckin’... Santa Claus?”

“I’m positive, Sam. The shit he did--” Dean shook his head at the remembrance of it. “--let’s just say it matches _our_ definition of an angel perfectly.”

“Alright, then, how do we get to him?”

“Easy. Like this.”

With a crash, Dean broke the window by the doorknob and opened the door from the inside out, seeing straight through the innocent image of the man that now sat feet away in his rocking chair and fully prepared to do anything necessary to keep him in their range of sight.

“We know who you are. What you are. And we need your help.” Dean was quick to speak, saying his words in choppy sentences he inched his way closer and closer to the middle of the living room. Sam elected to do damage control just in case the angel tried to make a break for it, locking the door, closing the windows and standing a bit further behind, and quickly, Joel was left in a corner with nowhere else to go. When you worked with angels, you had to work fast- and even then, that tactic didn’t always work.

“What are you talking about? Why would you break into my house like this? I don’t even know who you-”

“Cut the shit, Joel.”

The sound of silence was overwhelming as the man rubbed his face, a muffled groan peeking out from between his thick fingers as Dean took another step closer to him.

“...Ah, _fuck_.” 

At the sound of his true name, the old man’s personality shifted, transforming his previously jolly face into an icy visage with darkened eyes and a steeled sneer stretched across his cheekbones. Shaking his head with an empty laugh, he swore, wasting no time in grabbing the small, blue switchblade from his shirt pocket and plunging it into his chest. Soon, Joel coughed and burgundy blood bubbled from his throat, slowly dripping down from the corner of his mouth and staining his greyed beard as he rolled his eyes back and eased into the death he had sealed for himself.

“I _told_ you not to come to Lafayette. Humans never fuckin’ listen, do they?” 

Dean didn’t speak, feeling his feet rush towards the angel’s body with his arms outstretched and his hand fully prepared to grab a fistful of his tight striped shirt, but it was too late. Joel was gone in search of his next vessel, leaving nothing behind but a flair of white light, a dead old man still rocking in his wicker chair, and three police officers banging on the front door window who were threatening to ram the door in if the two ‘thieves’ inside didn’t open the door.

“Sonuva _bitch_.” He cursed, seeing the blue and red police lights flash against the wall and standing upright. “How in the hell did that goddamned douchebag manage to set us up?”

“I don’t know, but uh... Dean?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” He grit his teeth and kicked up a corner of the rug, feeling a vein of frustration twitch on his forehead. “We’re jumping out the kitchen window. As always.”

And with that, the two of them turned on their heels and booked it for the kitchen just as the door was plowed open, the police officers fruitlessly chasing behind their worn off-brand shoes and being unable to do nothing but watch as the two grown men slammed through the window with a crash. Rolling onto a previously beautiful garden of petunias and hopping over the backyard fence back to the car, he could hear an officer cry out and yell random numbers into the radio that sat on his chest, each one fading further and further in the distance as Dean ran further off. _‘Suspects on foot- brown jackets, Caucasian, denim jeans. Headed for downtown Lafayette.’_ He half-expected to hear the words _‘devilishly handsome’_ be thrown in there, too, but didn’t think too much of it when he didn’t. They probably just forgot to mention it.

“Just like old times, huh?” Sam nudged his arm and wriggled his eyebrows, somehow finding a way to smile even despite being chased by three cops.

Dean groaned, feeling his legs burn against the impact of his feet on the concrete and his chest heave up and down in an anxious rhythm.

“Shut up, Sam.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, Comments, Kudos, and anything elses are always read and always appreciated!


	5. I'm Just Second-hand News

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys finally track down Joel- and his human lover.

Hiding out was never something Dean liked to do. It was cramped, and uncomfortable, and the sound of nothing but heavy breathing was gross- unless he was doing something _else_ to pass the time.

Frankly put, he hated it, but as he and his brother sat in the black Chevy impala on seats that were leaned all the way back and watched speeding police cars zoom past with their lungs in their throats and their hearts at their feet, he found that he really didn’t have a choice this time around.

“You know--” 

“Don’t do it, Sam.” 

“For you to be so in love with an Angel, you sure don’t know how to talk to their kind.”

Dean groaned, rolling his eyes. “I had to work fast, genius. I didn’t want him to-”

“Show his true form again.” Sam finished, throwing air quotes in the air and imitating Dean’s voice as he repeated the same thing his brother had said earlier. “You said the exact same thing when we first got in the car. I got it already.”

“Then you should _know_ why I did it that way.”

“Oh yeah, I do. I also know why it backfired.”

Dean got ready to toss Sam a weak insult, briefly sitting up and pointing his finger in the air, but his mouth ran dry when he saw the same blue and red police lights from earlier that night flash against the trees, and he slammed back onto his seat. Sam’s snicker at his panic was very much not appreciated, and he told him so through the middle finger he gave him.

“Just say that blasting into an angel’s house like you’re some deranged sort of FBI agent was a bad fuckin' idea, and I’ll let it go!”

“It wasn’t a bad idea!” Dean barked back. “I just didn’t do it right!”

Sam slapped his forehead, dragging his hand down his face before resting it in his lap. “That literally means it was a bad idea, Dean! Wha-”

“Shush!” Dean hissed, nodding out of the window at the second police car that passed by and shutting his brother up. With an eagle-like concentration, the two of them stared anxiously at the sight of it before they saw it fade into the distance.

When it was gone and the two of them could relax again, Sam folded his arms. “This is so stupid.”

“Kinda like your face.”

“Ooh, what a good one.”

There was more impatient silence as Dean pulled his phone from his pocket and began to play solitaire, and after a few minutes, Sam threw a purple pamphlet in his lap like he had involuntarily chosen to share a hidden treasure.

“Here.” 

Dean looked down at the pamphlet and skimmed over the bright white letters that read ‘In-Patient Hospice Care’ stretched in bold across the lilac colored paper. When he opened it, he paid attention to the many notes scrawled down in blue pen ink, the one saying ‘#346 at 4’ being the most pressing, and tossed it back to his brother with a grunt. "Is this supposed to be some weak version of an insult?”

“If it was, you'd know it." Sam explained "Before we left Joel's- well his vessel's- house, I snatched it from the coffee table. Do you think it’s his?”

“Maybe.” Dean shrugged. “It’s recent, after all.“

“We should check it out. We might meet him there, in the room number he wrote.”

“Its worth a shot.” Dean noted with a face that was too stubborn to admit that Sam had come through yet again with another piece of vital information. Putting his phone back in his pocket and looking around one last time, he sat up and moved to turn the car on, but when he noticed Sam glaring at him like a deer in headlights, he stopped.

“You're not seriously thinking of driving there now, are you? With the police still chasing after us?" 

“Why not?” Dean questioned, sounding surprisingly genuine. “I thought we’d be able to go more undetected at night.”

“Hell no, Dean! Lay back down- we’re stuck here until tomorrow, and you _know_ it.”

As much as Dean didn’t want to admit it, and would honestly have just rather left immediately and waited somewhere that he didn’t have to see the back of the Hamburglar’s head mirror-reflected through thick paper, he knew his brother was right. More than that, he noticed as he fell back down on the seat once again just as a third police car passed by, Sam probably knew _that,_ too- and for some reason, his brother knowing more than he did was always embarrassing.

“I hate this.”

“Not as much as I hate your bad ideas.” Sam retorted.

“I told you it wasn’t a bad idea, Sam.”

“Well _I_ told _you_ \--

The bickering started all over again until the two of them fell asleep in the car, their heads leaned on the backseats and the Impala tucked right behind the old McDonald’s billboard for hours until the sun rose back up and the alarms on their watches beeped. Even then, Dean woke up just enough to turn the beeping off, and rolled over to get a few more hours of shuteye in until he'd have to get up and drive all over again. Laying in that car was uncomfortable as all hell, but sleep was sleep- and once Dean was in it, he didn't want to get out of it until he was practically forced to.

Turns out, Sam's incessant smacking of his lips was all the forcing he needed.

"Morning, Jerk." Sam offered him half of a Slim Jim, which Dean pushed away when he sat up from the car seat, and continued to smack on the jerky as he typed away at his computer and continued to do whatever he had been doing before his older brother woke up.

"Hey, Bitch." Dean replied, the words coming out more because of muscle memory then anything else as he rubbed the back of his throbbing head and tried to get himself oriented. He still figured he was pretty young every now and again, but the way his brain seemed to be banging up against his skull reminded him all too well of the fact that he had 30 that year, not 20. "Shit- how are you up this early? And not in _pain_?"

"Well unlike you, I don't have the body of an age old pack mule, and its not early." Sam answered.

"What time is it, then?" Dean grabbed a bottle of water from the backseat and took a swig, scratching the side of his face and too being too lazy to check his own watch.

"Uh... 1:10." 

"You know Sammy, if we weren't being chased by cops because of a murder we didn't commit, I'd consider that late." 

Sam hummed in a way Dean knew meant bad news.

"It kinda is, because the police now know what car we're driving and are on the lookout."

Dean choked on his water, hacking wildly and twisting the cap on the bottle. "What?!"

"I guess Joel- or someone else, maybe- tipped them off last night. See?"

Sam turned the computer screen around to show a news highlight reel from the night before, the words '1967 black Chevrolet Impala' coming from the speakers and booming in Dean's ears a lot louder than the computer's volume bar said it supposedly was. "It's official- I'm going to whoop that motherfucker's ass. Gimme the pamphlet."

Before Sam could object, reluctantly handing Dean the hospice pamphlet, Dean turned the car on and winced at the sound of the engine rumbling on before slowly pulling back onto the street and towards the numbered address that was on the paper.

Driving through back-neck streets and pothole filled alleyways fast enough to be considered in a hurry but slow enough as to not get pulled over by the police- which would have been a whole problem in itself- Dean drove according to his phone's directions and swerved into the most inconspicuous parking space he could find by the building, far behind the main entrance and packed next to a field of soccer mom vans and Toyota Priuses like a can of sardines. "Come on." 

"This is... a Hospital?" Sam asked absentmindedly, getting out of the car after Dean and staring up at the building. "What would an angel be doing visiting here, of all places?"

If it was an open question, Dean sure as hell didn't answer it. He was too focused on trying to find the elusive, dirty-mouthed bastard and refrain from wringing his throat out to pay attention to his visiting habits, still feeling a crick in his neck from the way he slept in that car seat, and told Sam so as he walked around to his side with a groan and the cracking of his back. They had already overslept, it was almost 4 due to all of the circles Dean had made in a paranoid attempt to keep the cops off of their asses, and if the pamphlet really _was_ Joel's, then they had to make their way up to the hospital room as soon as they could so they could ambush him right in the hallway before he expected a thing. It was a violent plan, but whenever you threatened the safety of Dean's car, things always got violent.

He'd bring that car to heaven with him, if he could.

Patting Sam's back as if a spur to action, he prompted him to start walking towards the revolving glass doors that stood in front of them before stopping him just as fast as they turned the corner.

There, like an Achille’s heel ready to tear at any moment, sat two of the three police officers from last night right by the entrance of the hospital. They didn’t seem to have noticed them, with their food in hand and their lips moving in a fast-paced conversation that Dean couldn’t and didn’t want to hear, but they were close enough to Dean’s objective to where they could and would cause a decent enough problem if they caught sight of him or his brother.

Fresh out of options and really not in the mood to be in handcuffs ever again in his life (unless he was doing a certain _something_ with a certain _someone_ ), Dean pointed to a group of people about to make their way into the building and made the quick and poorly-timed decision to walk in with them as their disguise. “Let’s follow them inside. Act natural, Sam.”

Sam nodded in agreement, and with a quick stride onto the sidewalk, the two men tried to blend in as well as possible with the talkative group of people and kept their faces down and centered on absolutely nothing. Most of the group didn’t notice them at all, though a couple that were trailing behind looked at the two men suspiciously, and they passed the police officers that stood by the entrance with a clean ease. 

“‘Scuse us.” Sam coughed to one of the officers, putting on what Dean thought was his best Oscar the Grouch impression as he scooted past them with his knees tucked in to cut a couple of inches down on his height. Breaking free from the group they had walked in with the second they felt the warm heat of the inside of the lobby clamp down on them, Dean glared at Sam and saw his brother’s shoulders tense in defense.

“What?”

“ _What_?” He repeated. “What the hell was that? I said act natural- not like fuckin’ Igor!”

“That was natural!”

“Oh, my-” Dean noticed the police officers glance at them again and grabbed his brother’s hand, dragging him to the closest receptionist’s desk with the most ‘panicky-average’ face he could muster to put on. “Let’s hurry.”

“We’re looking for room 346.” Dean said the minute he locked eyes on her, trying his best to look as normal as he could as Sam hunched over next to him, his back turned to the police officer’s in an attempt to stop them from getting a good glimpse of either of their faces.

“Ah, the hospice care ward?”

“Yep, I guess. Can you hurry it up with the directions, please?” He heard footsteps approaching and nearly jumped from his skin when they passed him, huffing out a shaky gasp of temporary relief when he realized it was just a group of teenagers making their way towards the gift shop.

“Up the elevator to the third floor, and then make a left.” The receptionist said, her annoyance obvious at first but then faltering when an idea clicked in her mind. Dean didn’t like the look on her face and almost made a dash for it, but when she added onto her conversation, he couldn’t help but stand mid-run by her desk.

"I'm sorry for your loss, by the way."

Dean stopped, raising a brow and turning to face the woman. Had Joel tricked them again, and attempted to lead them into a funeral just to get them off of his trail? There was no way he would be able to do that- at least what that's what Dean said in his mind- but he still had to confirm it. Angels were always unpredictable, after all.

"Our... loss?"

“Yeah, Ms. Caufield is-" There was a clacking of keys as she pulled something else up on her computer, and when she found what she was looking for, her face paled and she slapped a hand to her mouth. "Oh shit- shoot- I’m sorry!” The receptionist stammered, looking incredibly ashamed at the assumption she thought she had made. “I just assumed that- because three new people came to visit her at the same time- ugh, I didn’t mean to-”

 _Three new people?_ Dean and Sam exchanged a look, knowing that there was only one reasonable explanation as to who the third person could have been. Well, there were quite a few explanations when they thought about it, but there was only one that worked for them. Joel was here, meaning that the crucial part of Dean's 'ambush plan' had already failed, and if they didn't hurry, they'd miss him entirely. More importantly, if they didn't hurry, they'd get their asses handed to them by the cops that had now made their way into the hospital lobby.

“You’re fine. Thanks.” Dean rushed.

They sprinted their way up the elevator and to the third floor, running towards their destination with their gazes locked straight ahead and their arms pumping back and forth with each step. Then, as quietly as they could, they skittered to an abrupt halt when they caught the slightly far off glimpse of a young man with one hand holding a large paper bag and his other on the doorknob of room 346 standing in the middle of the hospital hallway.

“Joel?” Sam said with a fair bit of uncertainty, approaching the younger man with a cautious walk. If this was the angel they thought it was, he had chosen a vessel that was the complete opposite of what he was before, at least a foot taller and looking much less jolly than the old man they had first met. Having boorish brown eyes with rounded dark circles placed securely underneath them, a youthful but slightly aged face with a jutting jawline, and a lean body that showed its muscle through the white button-up shirt he wore, this potential rendition of Joel looked less like an angel and more like a cynical businessman with a grudge against the world and a desperate need for a power-nap.

“Son of a bitch, not you two again.”

With that, at least their suspicions were confirmed- this was indeed the angel they were looking for. 

“We need your help.” Sam repeated Dean’s words from the night with the most calm voice he could muster, acting like he was soothing a cat from a tree.

“Yeah, I got that already.” Joel hissed. “Look, I don’t want to get ugly in a hospital, but I can and will render the both of you powerless if you don’t leave me alone.”

“It’s about Castiel.”

It was a risk to say his name in front of Joel, quite frankly because the thought that all angels knew each other was probably far from the truth, but the vibrations of unease that thrummed deeply in Dean’s heart were there for another reason. A silly, damn near nonsensical reason, but enough of one to make his body start to tremble and his eyes hit the ground like glass on the pavement.

He hadn’t heard or said _his_ name ever since he was taken, and hearing it again from Sam after months of ignoring its very existence felt like someone had poured acid in his ears and left it to bubble in his brain until it spilled out the other side. He half-expected for him to show up and tell him that it was all nothing but an elaborate prank, but he knew better. He knew better, but he still wanted it, and the fact that he didn’t see those familiar blue eyes looking slightly up at him when the name registered hit him like a punch in the gut. He didn’t want to hear it anymore, or think about it anymore, but when he saw Joel’s face light up at the sound of the name and stand up just a little straighter, he knew that the name _Castiel_ and the memories of him would be thrown about a lot more often now than Dean wished for them to.

“The angel, Castiel? The little one, with the personality problems?” Joel brought his hand down to his ankles, making him seem like he was as tall as a newborn on its back, and whistled lowly. “Damn, I haven’t heard his name in centuries. You know, _I_ was the one who used to be called the hottest angel up there until he took my place. Devastating shit, ‘cause--”

“Yeah, well he’s not here anymore.” Dean cut him off, keeping his eyes to the ground.

“Hm.” Joel noticed Dean’s off-put behavior but didn’t bring his thoughts to light. “Alright then, I’ll play your little game of conversation. Where did he go?”

“...The Empty.” Sam finally answered, still keeping his distance from Joel just in case he chose to show the more ‘unappetizing’ part of himself as he did the day before.

“So… the bitch is dead?”

“He was _taken_.” Dean seethed in response, teetering dangerously close to saying ‘fuck it’ and charging at the man without giving a damn about the consequences.

“I dunno, that seems a lot like dead to me.” Joel cackled, reveling in Dean’s anger for some reason and leaning up against the wall with a self-assured grin. He knew that if the man tried anything, he would immediately lose, and Dean knew it too- however much the fact pissed him off.

“We want to get him back, Joel. We have a ritual, something that could help us out, but we need you to-.”

“I don’t give a shit what you want me to do, Kid.” Joel wagged his finger in the air, stopping Sam short. “Fact is, I’m not going to do anything. Ask Uriel-”

“Dead.” 

“Or Gabriel-”

“Dead.”

“Jesus fuckin Christ, are any of ‘em still alive?” Joel looked offended more than upset at the deaths of his brothers, which the Winchesters were coming to notice was a recurring theme whenever it came to the angels’ feelings about each other.

"We need an angel to get him back, Joel. We need you- because you’re all that’s left."

Joel looked oddly distant when he heard the word 'angel', Sam striking a nerve that he didn’t even know was there. “Well, it’s too bad that I’m not an _angel_ anymore, isn’t it?”

The man almost moved to walk away, leaving the two men in the hospital hallway with nothing but their busted dreams and reflected pleads, but stopped short in front of one of the wooden doors and looked at them with eyes of pure mischief.

"Tell me why you need him so badly. If your reason's interesting, I might just entertain this idea of yours."

Sam looked at Dean expectantly, and irritation trickled in his bloodstream. Out of all of the times he wanted his brother to take the reins, it was now? Now that he had to finally say how he felt outside of hushed murmurs and reluctant confessions inside of the cramped walls of a car or a seedy motel room? Dean felt his fists clench at his sides and rolled his eyes, but kept himself from saying anything that would set Joel on edge or drift them further from their goal. Joel was the only thing that could bring him closer to Cas- and if telling him what the angel meant to him was going to bring them an ounce further to their goal, then Dean would do anything- including throw his emotions out on a platter for the world to consume.

“He was...close to us. To me.” Dean finally spoke. “We did some of everything together, including kill some of the angels you mentioned, and he made everyday feel better for me. Special. Whenever I needed him, he was there- and whenever he needed me, I tried to do anything I could to ease his pain. Before I knew it, I-I realized I had fallen in love with him.”

It felt weird to say that he was in love with him. He had accepted it months ago, known it for longer, but to admit it so openly to strangers and act like it was the most normal thing in the world was a foreign experience that made Dean feel liberated and stunned simultaneously. But then came the next part that he had to mention to Joel, the part that he never wanted to discuss again, and he turned to Sam with a silent look that begged for him to take over the reins and give Joel the rest of the explanation he wanted. Thankfully, Sam understood, and started to take over with a sigh.

“But then he was taken by Ephraim and pulled into the Empty, and--”

“Hold on. By _who_?” 

Sam began to repeat the name, but was cut off just as he was about to speak by the ringing of an alarm on Joel’s phone. Mumbling curses under his breath and checking the time, Joel nodded towards the entrance of the hospital room and twisted the door to room 346 open, directing them to the inside with the rude jutting of his head. “Fuck, I don’t have time. Get inside.”

~~

Dean and Sam slowly walked into the hospital room, already feeling antsy at the constant beeping coming from the covered up monitor that was pushed by the wall and the cold floor that squeaked every time they got closer and closer to the patient who had apparently already been presumed dead. Dean didn’t know what, or who, he had expected, but it wasn’t the old woman who was sitting upright in the bed in front of him- and by the looks of it, she hadn’t been expecting him either.

She was older, most likely in her late 50’s or middle 60’s, but she had a certain southern charm about her that made her brown skin sparkle against the fluorescent lights that shone over her bed and a sharpness in her cheekbones that made her seem 20 or 30 years younger than she was. If you tried hard enough, you could almost forget the wires that were hooked up to her fingers and stuck to her body, and if you tried even harder, you could see her in any situation other than the one she was in at that moment, dressed in a flowing floral dress instead of her bland hospital gown and busying herself with the preparation of a cake instead of previously staring out of the window with a tired posture and a thick book on dream interpretation resting on her lap. As Joel passed by them, Dean could feel the discomfort radiate off of him, and noticed that they weren’t the only ones who weren’t a fan of being in hospital rooms.

“Tallass, Shortass, this is Maryanne Caufield.” Joel introduced, setting the paper bag he was carrying down on a table. “Maryanne, this is Tallass and Shortass.”

She visibly relaxed at the sight of her actual visitor, her then defensive frown now replaced with the easy-going wave of her hand. “It’s nice to meet you…” The woman trailed off, waiting for them to say their actual names.

“Sam and Dean Winchester.“ Sam clarified.

“These are the two I was telling you about over the phone.” Joel dove in the bag and took out a small pot of tulips, dusting off the dirt that had spilled over the side of the pot with his hands and wiping his hands on his jeans.

“You mean the two who you framed for murder while you found another body to take over?” Maryanne asked, setting her glasses aside and looking at the two of them. “I told you they wouldn’t run away that easily.”

“You _know_ that he’s an-”

“I have for the past 34 years.” The old woman waved the thought Sam was about to give out of the room like it was an annoying fly, bringing her hand to the side of her mouth and nodding in Joel’s direction. “He never leaves me alone.” She whispered.

“I heard that.” Joel replied, setting the flowers down in the windowsill. They replaced another, older pot of withered flowers, chock full of used Newport cigarette butts that were squashed in the soil, and the sight of it made Dean's stomach churn until he turned his focus back to the conversation at hand.

“You know you love it.”

“Just barely.”

Almost instantly Dean could see that the two had a certain chemistry about them that was unexplainable, one that engulfed the entire room in a feeling that smelt like warm apple pie and enveloped everything in a soft and fuzzy embrace that got more and more comforting the longer the two brothers stood idly in the room. It wasn’t hot- like the burning feeling of lust between two lovestruck teenagers- but it wasn’t cold either, like a love that had fizzled out years ago. It just felt _right_ , never forced but always genuine, and it made Dean miss a home he had never really had as he watched them stare back at each other with their minds already far from the world they had settled in. Standing in front of him was a couple, one made of an angel and a human, and it was everything he wanted to be and everything he was fighting for.

Nice and easy, like a river of well-aged whiskey, Joel laughed- and when Maryanne followed suit, Dean felt the sensation of loneliness grow that much stronger as he waited for the two of them to remember that they weren’t the only two people who existed on the planet. When he turned to Sam, he found that his younger brother looked more than used to it, and wondered if the emotion he felt then was what it was like to be a third wheel. Shuffling on his feet and wondering just how long it would take for them to acknowledge his existence again, Dean clasped his hands together silently and breathed a sigh of relief when their string of connection had finally been cut and they looked back at their two guests.

“Anyway, yes. These are the two splinters that have been in my ass lately.” Joel griped, pointing at the two of them like Maryanne couldn’t see them well enough herself. “Can you believe that they want me to help them with a whole ass portal to the afterlife? I know, you’re already worried about me- aren’t you?” He pushed his face towards hers and leaned in for a hug, groaning when the woman suddenly lurched forward and left him to fall onto the hospital bed with a hollow ‘poof’.

“If they’re so annoying, then why haven’t you skedaddled into another vessel yet?” Maryanne purposefully ignored both Joel and his pained moans as he sat back up from the bed and looked at him from the corner of her eyes, waiting on an explanation. It seemed like Joel had a habit of jumping from person to person based on how easily the woman was able to give him the proposition, but it still didn’t make the mental image any easier to understand, and the fact that Maryanne was able to keep her love for Joel just as strong even despite him travelling from body to body like he was crossing trips off of his bucket list was something Dean didn’t think he’d ever be able to do if he was in her shoes. 

Unless the person in question was _him_ , that is.

At the sound of her question, Joel sighed and stood up, opening a small gap in the window and lighting a cigarette like he wouldn’t be able to answer her without being at least a little intoxicated.

“...They saw Ephraim.” 

The mood turned grim between them as Maryanne flinched at the name, whipping around to face Joel and panicking when she saw his face devoid of all emotion. It was a defense mechanism Dean knew all too well, one that dissociated from the entire situation in order to make sure he didn’t slip up and say something he wasn’t supposed to, and he then knew that the name Ephraim was one the couple never wanted to hear again in their lives.

“What? When? Where?” Maryanne interrogated Joel like he was witness to the entire situation. Dean almost answered some of the questions for her, but stopped just short of opening his mouth. He still couldn’t say or hear his name without feeling like it was wrong in the atmosphere, there was no way he could rehash the moment with a near stranger and still feel like himself by the time the conversation was over.

“Apparently he took the short one’s angel boyfriend a few months ago. They want to get him back with some fancy little spell, apparently.” 

“Dean, Joel. His name is Dean.” Maryanne corrected.

“That’s what I said. The short one.” Joel pointed at Dean with his cigarette and took a breath, blowing the smoke out of the gap in the window and not noticing Dean’s deadpan expression.

“Well you can’t just leave him alive, Joel.” The woman said it like it was common knowledge, something that Dean very much had not expected her to say.

“I can do anything I want, babes.”

“Not after what he did.”

“ _Especially_ after what he did."

The air was tense, and if Dean squinted just enough, he could see tiny lightning bolts shoot back and forth from Joel and Maryanne’s foreheads as they let the air fall into a damp quietness that reminded him of a wet and mildewed hand towel. Sam slowly let his hand rise to the air and settle by the middle of his head, acting like he was a middle schooler with a stupid question. “What… did Ephraim do to you two?” 

“Too much.” Joel replied simply, but cracked his knuckles and decided to elaborate into the story the both of his guests were apparently asking for.

“Back when Maryanne and I had first become- well, a thing- I threw away the title of an angel and became hers and hers only. I was tired of easing souls to heaven, tired of seeing the horrors mankind would throw on itself, and just wanted a break. I wanted her, and after years of tying, I convinced her family to let me live with them under the guise of being her- what was it?”

“College roommate.”

“College roommate.” Joel repeated with a bitter laugh before returning back to his story. “Everything was going fine, perfectly fine, until he crossed our paths one day.”

“He told me that since I had thrown away my duties as an angel, that I had to join him instead. That I had to ease the pain of the souls on this earth with him for a perfect world, like I was some goddamned lackey. When I told him I was done, he said that he’d ‘punish me’ if I didn’t join him-- and I told him to fuck off.”

“But he wasn’t going to take a no, because he was ‘God’s Favorite’.” He mocked. “He was the ‘Chosen one’, and he had to make sure I knew it. So one night, just when I thought everything was safe and he was finally gone, he lit her family’s house ablaze and watched us run out of it while we watched our world crumble apart-- making sure he let us leave with our lives before he sealed the doors shut and locked the rest of Maryanne’s family inside.” He paused, licking his dry lips and taking another hit of his cigarette. “Because of me-”

“Because of _Ephraim_ , my family was gone in an instant.” Maryanne finished the sentence for him and clarified the misunderstanding Joel was about to place upon himself, taking a short while to stare at the two men in front of her with a kind sort of nostalgia reflected in the brown pools of her eyes. “Burned alive, locked in the house with no way out and left to suffer as we watched it all from a distance. I tried to rush in afterwards, but it was… too late.”

That explained the older burn marks that trailed up her left arm, at least, but the story of sacrifice was never one Dean wanted to hear. Especially not when the words _‘too late_ ’ were involved, reminding him of Tommy’s similar warning back in Ellijay and sending another breeze down his back at the thought of it. Sam was still engrossed in their story, switching his eyes from Maryanne to Joel every other minute, but Dean had fallen into a strange sort of sympathetic connection to the older woman in front of him and kept his eyes on hers as Joel continued in the background. Would Dean have to face a sacrifice just as she did, one that would burn everything he loved to the ground? He didn’t have many things he loved anymore. He didn’t know if he’d be able to lose anything else and still keep his sanity, too. 

“Ever since, it's been my only mission to keep her safe.” Joel uttered the words like he was saying something inherently horrid, his body now completely turned to the window and the butt of his cigarette squashed in the flower pot by his side. “That’s why I’m hiding out here, and why it’ll stay that way until Maryanne… _leaves me,_ too.” It looked like it physically pained him to say the words. “That’s why I haven’t been an ‘angel’ for the past 32 years, either.”

“God, Joel.” Sam put a hand to his mouth, trying and failing to hide the pity that seemed to radiate off of him. “I’m so sorry to-”

The archangel put a hand in the air as a way to tell Sam to be quiet, though his hands were still subtly shaking at the aftermath of him reliving the memory, and tried to bring himself back under a composure that Dean could tell was ‘normal’ for him. While he was silent, Maryanne took the time to speak in his stead.

“Tell me something, Dean.” Dean snapped his attention back to the woman in the bed as soon as she asked and nodded in her direction, her sudden command taking both him, Sam and the still thankfully quiet Joel by surprise.

“If Joel says that he’ll take on the mantle of an angel one more time, and he joins you in whatever ritual you’ve got planned- will you kick that son of a bitch’s ass for me?”

“Absolutely.” Dean answered without a hint of hesitation.

“Then he’s going with you.”

“Mary-” Joel started, glaring in her direction.

“You’re going to go _for them_ .” She paused, and added her second sentence in a near whisper. “ _For me_.”

The two looked at each other again, with Joel’s brows furrowed and Maryanne’s face stretched paper thin, but the angel’s will was broken down soon enough and replaced with a reluctant defeat as he rubbed the nape of his neck and turned towards the Winchesters. Whatever heated argument they had engaged in silently between themselves, he had lost it, and it showed in the flash of irritation that flew on and off of his face.

“Then I guess I have no choice but to tag along with them after all, huh? Seeing how I've _always_ done whatever you wanted.” Joel quipped with a smirk, though his tense adam’s apple that hung suspended in the middle of his throat showed that he wasn’t happy with the situation in the slightest. “But before I go-” With a slow, airy step, he walked to Maryanne with a wink and brightened at the sound of her laughter like she had told him a wonderful secret.

“Will you wait for me? Just until I come back for you again?”

Joel sounded like his life hinged on her response, now kneeling at her bedside with his hands softly clenching her blankets and his lips curved in a left-leaning and loose smile that did nothing to downplay his apparent apprehension.

“I always have, haven’t I?” Maryanne smiled, cupping the side of Joel’s face and keeping her hold tight. 

“I told you already. I won’t go _anywhere_ unless I’m going with _you_.”

Was _he_ waiting for Dean in the same way Maryanne would wait for Joel? Would he stay with Dean until he was withered and grey, and still be able to look at him like he hadn’t aged a minute? Could the two of them truly be happy again, alone and in their own corner of the world, and just _live_ ? Was it ever even possible, or had Joel and Maryanne just found some strange sort of loophole in the system? Did Dean even _deserve_ a life like that?

Curious, needy questions waltzed slowly in the forefront of his mind and took Dean over completely, but he pushed them down with a heavy swallow and tried to keep his thoughts from drifting again. He knew that he wouldn’t get the answers to his questions until he could finally see his angel and ask them in person, with their eyes on each other’s and their warm hands intertwined for the first time in what felt like a million little eternities. He prayed that the answers to them were everything he hoped they would be- and as much as he was coming to detest the smug archangel that now stood in front of him, he needed nothing more than for he and Cas to live a life that would replicate Joel’s perfectly. 

It might have been an impossible need, but it was _there_. It was _there_ , and it had a heart and a will of its own, and Dean had to see this journey through just to take a chance on it.

“Alright, runt.” Joel grabbed his jacket from the coat rack and threw it on, the fuzzy black material flapping as it flowed down to his knees and snapping Dean out of the ocean of wishful wonder he had suddenly found himself lost in. Opening the door with the two brothers tucked closely at his sides, Joel made his way towards the exit and gave one last grin to the love of his life before shutting the door behind him.

“Let’s go get your lover back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, Comments, Kudos, and Anything Elses are always read and always appreciated!


	6. Within The Wings Of A Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean, Sam and Joel decide to take a short break in New Iberia before acquiring the last element of the ritual and beginning the fight with Ephraim, but Dean just can't shake the feeling of dread that's washed over him- and he's not the only one who knows why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (TW: Suicide. Not described in massive detail, but if you want to skip it, look for the bolded word "Hello" after reading "You might not want to be in here, Sam".)

The cement felt cold below his bare feet.

It was the first thing Dean noticed as he took small steps down a desolate sidewalk, trapped between a world of brokenness and a world of mystery with nothing but orange street lights overhead to guide his path.

He didn’t think he had blinked in a while, but then even when he tried to, he couldn’t get his eyes to squeeze shut. It was like something was forcing them open, forcing him to look at every crack in the path and at every mutilated body he walked past until he reached his destination, and was laughing at the way his heart slammed against his ribcage at the sight of it all like an omnipresent spectator. Even stranger, Dean couldn’t bring himself to remember where his destination _was,_ anymore. He was just walking to nowhere, over the dead bodies and under the withered tree branches that reached out to him through gaps in chain-link fences over and over again in some morbid loop. He didn’t know why, but he’d be walking on that cold concrete until he was commanded to stop, or until the street lights faded off at the end of the road, or until the same person who had killed the people he stepped over made his rounds again and tore him limb from limb. The only real choice he had was which direction to take, and even then, it all depended on what the voices in his head said.

After walking for what felt like years, he himself at a crossroads, his feet sounding wet against the bloodied walkway and splatters of the liquid turning brown on his ankles and heels. He went left at the barking of something else’s command in his ear- too lethargic to think for himself and too curious to forego getting closer to the warm glow of the house that stood at the end of the street, and noticed the street lights burst and break from out of his peripheral the minute he recognized the three people in the upstairs window of what he now remembered was the original Winchester family house.

There they were. Sam, and Mary- and a man fully dressed in grey, unrecognizable with his back turned to the window but still familiar with his short auburn hair and freckled white neck as he tossed a matchbox up and down in the air. They were waving at him, with the exception of the stranger in grey, their own versions of beckoning smiles tucked between their lips and their eyes beaming with the recognition of the man who stood a distance from the Victorian-styled brick walls, and eagerly they told him to ‘Come Closer’ and to ‘Not be afraid’ of crossing the invisible line that divided them.

Dean couldn’t move.

“ Sam? ...Mom?” Dean was screaming their names and he felt the frantic grinding of his vocal chords in his throat, but he didn’t seem to make a sound that his family could hear. He couldn’t move his hand to point at the man behind them either, though his fingers twitched by his side, and his legs were glued to the asphalt like a tree to its roots, though his calves burned with the strain of movement and the balls of his feet throbbed against the pavement. Why couldn’t he get closer? Who was that man in grey? And why was the room his family was in slowly being enveloped in a red and orange blaze?

Two of those questions were never answered, but the third had a resoundingly loud explanation as the panicked screams of Sam and Mary consumed the motionless sound in the street, the two of them catching ablaze as sparks of fire climbed up their clothes and sank its burning teeth in their flesh. They were burning, like logs of dry wood, and smoke blasted through the upstairs windows as the now amplified sounds of their pleading shrieks rang out through the air. Dean still didn’t- couldn’t- move, his cries of advice going nowhere further than the inside of his mouth, and his teeth ground in his jaw as he tried and failed to just close his eyes and keep them that way.

Dean saw it all, feeling his soul buckle while his body stood stiff, and watched as his childhood home crumbled to pieces and his family slowly burned to ashes in a fire that was now the only source of light that remained. Somehow, he heard the front door open through the sounds of the steadily quieting screams, and with swollen, teary eyes, he pried his eyes from the upstairs window and to the entrance of the house that stood darkened and ominous in front of him.

Then, with two pained steps, there stood _Him_ , standing in the doorway of the house with his wings broken, his body mangled, and his face stained with bubbling black tears of tar that slid down his face and left small holes in the patio by his sullied shoes as they burned through the wood. 

_“Are you going to let me die again, Dean?”_

Dean felt his body convulse against the black seat belt of the car as his eyes twitched open, his head accidentally slamming into the passenger seat window and his throat dried completely. It was late in the afternoon, with the soft rays of slowly yellowing sunlight beaming onto the hood of the car, and Sam and Joel had apparently decided to get into an argument on music tastes while the older Winchester slept in the meantime.

“There’s no way in the hell you can tell me you prefer Janis Joplin to Stevie Nicks. They’re incomparable.” Sam scoffed, rolling his eyes and inadvertently making his ponytail swing sideways against the back of his neck. He looked like he was enjoying the debate, as much as the irritation in his words said otherwise.

“Well yeah, precisely _because_ Janis Joplin is better.”

“You’re only saying that because you don’t listen to enough Stevie Nicks.”

Joel clicked his tongue and prepared to make his equally catty response, but Sam cut him off in favor of turning to his jilted brother and giving him a puzzled once-over. “You good, bro? You slammed your head a little hard over there.”

“Yeah, is being in the car with me that insufferable? I might be offended depending on your answer.” Joel drawled through smiling teeth, his eternally snobbish voice managing to jolt Dean from his still half-sleep.

“It’s pretty damn insufferable, I’ll give you that.” Dean wiped his face with his hand and cracked his neck, shaking his head to get himself oriented. “But I slammed my head on accident.”

“Couldn’t sleep?”

“Something along those lines.” Dean replied to Sam in a sigh, shifting his attention back to the occasional blurs of cars the three of them passed by on their way to New Iberia, Louisiana and only half-listening to the continued fight between Sam and Joel on which woman of rock was better than the other.

New Iberia was a small town a few miles from Lafayette, which wasn’t too surprising considering that Sam and Dean could almost be considered small town aficionados, and it was the closest town to a ‘large body of water’ they could find- aside from a few ponds that Dean was too paranoid to settle for. The night before, Joel had handled the Winchester's criminal charge in Lafayette in a way he chose not to describe, only saying it had been _handled-_ and that only seemed to aid in the overall process of their journey to The Empty.

Slowly but steadily, they were nearing the finish line with each passing day, and it wouldn’t be long until Dean would take that step into darkness and prepare to engage in the biggest fight of his life. Maybe that explained why he’d been having nightmares every time he fell asleep for the past three days.

In those dreams, it was always burning, or breaking, or drowning. It was always Sam, or Mary, or Bobby, or Him, or all of them at once. And he was always the one who was too late or too far away to save them from their enemies, the one who had to watch as they died in front of him and live with the fact that he failed the people who he loved most until he woke up. He’d feel like his body had been submerged in egg yolks and his eardrums had been stuffed with moist coffee grinds whenever they ended, and that feeling would remain until he somehow managed to stop thinking that it was all ‘his fault’. 

He wasn’t going to lie to himself, he knew where the nightmares were coming from. He knew the reason they had been on the forefront of his mind, when they had started and why. 

It was because he knew the plan he had created was flawed, and he knew that it was only a matter of days until he’d have to go through with it. 

Thankfully he disguised his emotions well, and always made sure to evade the question when Sam asked him just how he intended to ‘kill’ Ephraim in the first place, but recently, there was always a pair of eyes locked on the back of his head that saw through every façade and every half-assed joke Dean tried to create. It was like Joel knew him, every part of him, and read through his mind like an old picture book the longer time went on. He was supposed to be an angel of mortal empathy, and Dean had already learned that fact through a 5 minute google search, but there was still something more to Joel that Dean couldn’t figure out. Somehow, Joel knew more than he said he did, felt more, saw more- and all of it seemed to be silently at Dean’s expense.

“Dean.” Sam sounded agitated, like he had been repeating himself one too many times, and Dean flinched at the sound of his name being called.

“Huh?”

“I asked you what else we needed for the ritual.”

“Oh, um, let me see.” Digging in his jacket pocket, he grabbed the journal and flipped back over to the dog-eared page. “Well, we got most of it. The henbane, and the virgin’s blood, and everything else like that. As for the harder parts of it, the Angel is… accounted for, I guess.” Dean slapped the book closed and threw it back into the in-seam of his jacket, looking forward to the day when he’d no longer have to carry the damn thing around.

“All that’s really left is the beating heart and the Reaper.”

Sam nodded, his eyes scanning the road but his mind most likely devising yet another strategy, and Joel piped up from the backseat as he leaned against one of the doors and looked at his tanned hands.

“I can take care of the vital organ part, if you want.”

“Really?” Dean couldn't conceal his strange mix of elation and skepticism.

“Yeah, I’ll just rip this one out. No biggie.”

Dean looked back to find Joel completely serious, not an inch of his usually sly demeanor on his features as he cracked his fingers and looked back at the man in the passenger’s seat. “What? I got this body when it was already dead. I can do whatever I want with it.”

With the twitching of his nose, Dean almost brought to light that just because he was living in a dead body didn’t make the idea of him ripping his own heart out of his chest any less gruesome, but he thought better of it just in the nick of time and turned back to the front of the car. “Alright then,” he heaved. “All we need now is the Reaper-”

“And then, we’re all set for the portal’s activation.” His brother finished, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. “...Are you sure you know what you’re going to do?”

“I know, Sam. I told you I had it covered.”

“I can’t completely trust that if I don’t know what your plan is, Dean.” Sam said ‘Dean’ like he was his mother.

“You don’t need to know. I’ll be the only one going in anyway.”

“What if something goes wrong?”

“It won’t.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because I do, Sam.” Dean put the finality of his words in his sentence as Sam pulled into one of the vacant parking spots of the Crown Prince Inn- a strange name considering how the place looked like 18 people had been murdered in it- and unbuckled his seatbelt. “Don’t worry about it. I’m going to be fine.”

“Awfully confident there, aren’t you?”

Joel’s sing-song voice made Dean’s teeth grind as he stepped from the passenger’s seat, and he closed the door and tapped on the backseat window with a slight but obvious agitation. “How about _you_ just get out of the car.”

It seemed to be all the incentive the man needed as he obliged to Dean’s ‘suggestion’, opening the backseat of the car and stepping out onto the blackened concrete with the cracking of his back.

“So, have the two of you thought up how you’re going to summon your Reaper, or are you just gonna go for it?” Joel asked, pulling a stick of gum from his coat pocket and sticking it in his mouth, offering the rest to Dean and Sam. Dean refused the offer- though Sam was all too willing to accept- and the Winchesters shared a look before they collectively walked along the sidewalk to buy their rooms.

“Let’s just say we have a process.” Sam answered, staying with Joel a distance away as Dean worked things out with the receptionist. “It’s pretty grizzly, but we usually use that way to summon a Reaper if we’re short on options. Once we have them, we plan to trap them just in case they try to leave too soon- or if they want to take Dean with them.”

“Humans sure do evolve quickly. Trapping a Reaper?" He was impressed, which was an emotion Dean could tell was hard to come by when it came to him. “Do you need my help for anything at all?”

“Depends.” Dean walked back to the two men and tossed Joel a key to his own room. “Can you revive the dead?”

“...Are you going to-”

“More or less.” He interrupted, and the three walked back towards the rooms they had been given. “So?”

“Well yeah, if bringing you back to life is all you wanna do, then I can handle it.” Joel stopped in his tracks and leaned up against the wall as Dean put the key to he and Sam’s room in the lock. “I do have to warn you though. I’m a little… popular in the eyes of Grim Reapers.”

“What, ‘cause you kill off your vessels so often?” Dean didn’t wait to hear an answer before flinging the door open and pointing inside the room. “Come on, get inside.”

As soon as the door opened, furniture was moved and salt was laid to create the Reaper Trap. It was simple enough to remember, after seeing it in John’s book and then again in Bobby’s, and Dean and Sam stared at each other triumphantly before turning back to complete the last step of the plan. 

“You might...not want to be in here, Sam.” Dean said out of the corner of his mouth as he shuffled in his backpack for his lethal item of choice, and he could hear Sam gulp from across the room and shuffle away.

“Good idea.”

“You too.” He nodded at Joel, who had been standing silently by the front door for the past 25 minutes.

“Oh, no. I’ve seen this enough times to know how it goes.” Joel walked towards one of the dining seats and gestured for him to begin. “Besides, I’d like to make a little conversation with your Reaper friend anyway.”

“Suit yourself.”

Carefully, Dean grabbed a sofa pillow from his right and put it to the side of his face, hoping to muffle what little noise Sam would otherwise had been able to hear from the inside of the bathroom that he had made his temporary hiding spot, and put his first pistol to the side of his head with a breath. If this would have been permanent, he’d have no trouble in finding the symbolism of it, with the silver and brown handgun feeling heavy in his hands and his heart already hanging low, but he had to remind himself that for now, his death was only temporary. 

So, he had no issues with releasing the safety from the gun and unloading right into the side of his brain.

“ **Hello** , Dean Winchester.” Dean hadn’t even been staring down at his body for a second until his grim reaper had arrived to take him away. Her voice was cool and crisp, the inklings of a Cuban accent tucked neatly behind words she said all too flatly. “Assuming that you are willing to join me, I will guide you into the afterlife. My name is Elena, and I-”

Before Dean himself could interrupt her lengthy list of rules and explanations, Joel dramatically cleared his throat and brought Elena’s attention to him with a sharp smirk. “I’ve heard of making good impressions, but that suit looks a little stuffy on you- doesn’t it?”

“The archangel Joel.” She described him emotionlessly, but the hostility in the air had been suddenly brought to a peak.

Joel lifted two fingers to the side of his face and bounced them off into the air as a form of hello, her obvious anger falling on deaf eyes and blinded ears as the two of them stared at each other. “Hey there, kid.”

“I’m sorry, do you two _know_ each other?” 

“Everyone knows about me, Dean. I told you, I’m popular.”

“Popular is the wrong terminology.” Elena snubbed, clenching her fists at her sides with a scowl of pure disgust. “Your abandonment of your duty and 50 year disappearance has made you infamous amongst the Reapers whose workload you increased.”

“You worked with Reapers?” When Joel only responded in a haphazard shrug, Dean turned to Elena. “He worked with Reapers?”

“He took the place of Azrael when Metatron induced the fall of the angels.” Elena massaged the bridge of her nose with exasperation, obviously not anticipating to either see or talk to Joel. “He serves- or rather, is supposed to serve- as the angel of Death under the place of his brother.”

Joel was the angel of _Death_. In hindsight, it made sense, with the constant look of an aged distance on his face hidden behind subtle smirks and upturned eyes, but the knowledge of it sent shivers up and down Dean’s spine as he turned to face the easy-going man who looked like Elena had only pointed out the most basic of information. That could have explained why Joel’s mere presence commanded a daunting attention, or why he seemed to have had no qualms with ripping his own vessel’s heart out, or answered for any other strange thing he had done since Dean and Sam had first met him,, too- but before Dean had the chance to think it through, he realized the conversation was continuing without him.

“What are you doing here with the Winchesters, Joel? Have they coerced yet another angel to die for them fruitlessly?”

 _Fruitlessly_. The word stung.

“I have no intentions to die just yet.” Joel answered her first question easily. “And Dean, care to explain?”

“Do you know the incantation to summon The Empty?” Dean took the helm of the conversation and asked his question, stepping further away from the volatile woman in front of him and closer to Joel.

“If I do?”

“Then I'll need you to help me get in." He confessed, feeling like he was ripping off a bandaid more than anything.

Dean watched her step closer, thankfully still a ways away from the boundary of the sigil but close enough to add to hiss air of unease.

“Absolutely not. I’ve read your life record- associating with you for any reason would be less than advantageous.”

“You should listen to him, newbie.” Joel whispered, bucking his eyes and pointing down to the floor. “Look down.”

“A Reaper trap.” Elena looked from the white patterned floor up to Dean, the burning glare in her eyes damn near being able to kill him twice. “You’re craftier than I thought you’d be- and twice the nuisance.”

“It was the only way we could get to talk to you.” Dean squared his back and tried to be as patient as possible. “I need your help.”

“I do not care.” She responded in the same monotonous tone. “I have been assigned to guide your soul to the afterlife. There is nothing you could do or say that would dissuade me from my mission.”

“Joel- help me out here.” Dean grunted in a whisper, jabbing at his shoulder.

“What do you expect _me_ to do?”

" _Help_." The plea was emphasized. "She'll be more likely to listen to you, right? With the whole angel of Death thing."

Joel seemed to revel in the plea for a bit, and nodded his head with a theatrical groan. "Fine, fine."

“What if I told you I’d come back?” Joel piped up, the sound of his provocation instantly making the Reaper’s ears perk up as she whipped around to face him. It was a relief, honestly- because Dean wouldn’t have been able to think of any other way to convince her that didn’t involve prematurely serving his life up on a platter.

“What?”

“You heard me.” Joel stepped up from his chair and sauntered towards the woman in the trap, yawning as he made his way to her. “If I offered to become the angel of Death again, would that make you change your mind?”

“I’d consider it.”

“Drop the bullshit and give me a yes or no answer.”

Elena flinched at the sound of his command, but cleared her throat and tried to keep composure in the face of him anyway. Joel was _powerful_ , which was obvious when he was an angel of Death, but it was overwhelming to think that for the past week, he and his brother had been in the company of an angel who could even make Reapers tremble. How much damage could he do if he wasn’t on their side- and how much damage did he do before he went underground? It wasn’t something he wanted to think about, nothing about Joel ever really was at this point, and Dean could hear the faint traces of weakness in the Reaper’s voice as she stated her response. “If you promised not to rescind your oath once my end of the bargain would be fulfilled, then yes. I would agree.”

“Then I suppose our deal is made out for us.” Dean watched Joel lean in closer to the Reaper, keeping a wary eye on her and knowing she wouldn’t be able to refuse her proposal whether she wanted to or not, and kept his distance as far away from the two of them as he could. “What do you say, help us out and I’ll do the same for you?”

“If that is your will, Joel.”

“Don’t say that like that- it makes it seem like we’re in some sort of kinky relationship.” Joel laughed, taking his time disrupting a corner of the sigil with the moving of his foot to provide the Reaper an escape route. Elena only cocked her head to the side curiously at his answer, but when Joel waved her off, she turned her attention to Dean one last time before making her departure.

“When you are prepared to execute your foolish little quest, Joel knows how to summon me. As for you, our Angel of Death- I look forward to working with you again soon.”

Without another word or another second, Elena disappeared in a fit of fog, leaving both Dean and Joel without the time to answer, and Joel was left to do the last of the damage control as he put a thumb to Dean’s forehead and sent him reeling back into his body with a feather soft push. 

The sudden strength of his heart beating in his chest again and the feeling of his blood rushing in its normal speed made him double over almost immediately, his eyes watering as he dry-heaved with his hand on his chest, and he felt Joel pat his back in the most sympathetic way he could- which wasn’t that sympathetic at all- and describe how that was a ‘typical reaction’ when a soul was forced back into its body by him. The fact certainly didn’t help him out any, no matter how much Joel must have thought it did, and he heard anxious footsteps rush towards him with a frantic voice trailing just behind them.

“What happened?” Sam didn’t give Dean the time to even fully recover before rushing out the question. “All I could hear was Joel talking something about a plan.”

“Well-”

“Joel here is the angel of Death, that’s what happened.” Dean was quick to answer, still rubbing out the twinge in his chest with a muted groan. “He’s taking back the job in exchange for the Reaper to help us out.”

“Oh, _fuck_.” Sam stared at Joel. “Do you- can you- no, are you alright with doing this for us?”

“I mostly agreed because my time dawdling around is going to be pointless once Maryanne is gone anyway- so don’t think I’m so good a person as to sacrifice myself without an ulterior motive.” Joel quite obviously wasn't a fan of Sam's look of appreciation, and he tried his hardest to dissuade him from looking up to him. “Plus, it wouldn’t be good for my superiority complex if Dean was the only one to sacrifice something in this whole fight.”

Dean could see the gleam in his eye that indicated his words held more depth to them than he cared to elaborate on, and the look alone pierced burning needles into his heart.

But if Sam understood Joel’s statement the same way Dean did, he didn’t show it. “Then, in that case, everything’s ready.” He looked to Joel, who flashed a thumbs up, and then to Dean, who was unconsciously tapping his foot on the flooring. “Dean, you wanna go over it one last time?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Dean agreed with Sam twice, once to convince himself and again to steel his resolve, and answered his question with a curt nod. “Sure.”

And with that, Sam and Dean went right to work, organizing, planning and preparing for the ritual that they now agreed would be done at the earliest time they could the next day. Things like location, inventory and unanswered questions on execution were thrown back and forth in a constant cycle of conversation as Joel relaxed on the sofa and gave the occasional golden nugget of advice before leaving to his own room, and soon, the mellow sun disappeared behind oak trees and was replaced by a brightly shining full moon. 

“That's the last detail. Everything's been accounted for.” Sam finally finished, closing the journal and putting away the ingredients they had gotten from Tommy’s. “All that’ll be left is for you to go down there and… handle Ephraim. By yourself.”

“You still worried?”

“You told me not to be, so I’m not.” He said pointedly, though he still wore the truth on his face. Sam liked to know things, he liked to be a part of them- but he couldn’t, this time. Dean couldn’t _let_ him. The fact probably irritated Sam to no end, but deep down, he knew he could never break through whenever his brother’s mind was made up. “I just hope that you know what you’re doing.”

“What did I tell you this morning? I do. Do you trust me?” Dean winked, throwing a hand in the air at the sight of Sam’s slight concern.

“I trust you, Dean.”

“Alright then.” He said as he stood up from the table. “I’m gonna go outside for a bit and cool off. I’ll be back soon.”

“Just don’t be too loud coming back in. I'm going to sleep, and once I’m out, I don’t want to wake up again until it’s...time.”

Dean laughed, if not just to boost both of their moods, and ruffled Sam’s hair as he walked away. “‘Course not, princess.”

The crisp Louisiana breeze nipped at Dean’s nose like a mosquito bite the minute he opened the front door and took a while to stand outside of their motel room, the parking lot ahead being desolate with the exception of three cars, and he felt himself breathe as he watched his exhale escape into the air in a brush of white fog.

He found a certain stillness in the gentle buzz of moths flapping about around overhead lights and the slow rumble of the occasional car engine that would ride past, and if he was in any other situation, he could even have slapped a small smile on his face at the sound of his thoughts being disrupted. But this wasn’t any other situation, and as Dean heard Joel grumble something about it being “cold as shit out here” as he stepped out from the motel room next to theirs and stuck a cigarette between his teeth, the sight of the angel only served as a reminder of what was to come. 

“You want to know what’s horrible about being an angel, Dean?” 

Dean hadn’t expected him to speak, but still entertained the conversation he had started. “What?” 

“You’re trapped with the grace you’re given.” Joel took a breath and blew up billowy puffs of smoke, keeping his eyes focused on the grey clouds as he and Dean stared silently out at the parking lot. “You can never turn it off, and in my case, it serves as a constant reminder that you’ve been tasked with the hassle that is giving humans ‘heavenly guidance’.”

“Is that what you’re about to do?” Dean asked, smelling the slight hint of menthol in the tobacco smoke as he put his hand on the top of the silver bike rail in front of him. “Give me heavenly guidance?”

“Oh fuck no, not even if you paid me. I stopped doing that decades ago, because I knew you humans were beyond salvation.” His voice had a joking air even despite his wrinkled brows and thinly-pressed lips, and Joel kept his eyes forward for a reason that Dean knew wasn’t good. “I’m just here to ask you what your plan is, and if you’re going to go through with it.”

“You already know what I plan to do once I go out into The Empty, don’t you?” Dean asked it more like an accusation, tired of dodging the same question. “I’m going to-”

“Get Castiel back, I know that.” Joel interrupted, circling his finger in the air. “My question is, how? You gonna defeat Ephraim in a page-turning battle and kill him twice? Maybe go toe-to-toe with the black ooze itself?”

“I don’t intend to defeat anybody.”

“Then what do you intend to do?”

“Just enough to get what I want.” He kept his answer vague, but didn’t know what the point of it was. Joel was smart, too smart considering how he'd managed to survive on Earth for the past few millions of years and evade the prying eyes of Death and its subordinates for the past few decades, and Dean knew that any little lie he tried to tell at this point would go over as well as if he were standing next to a lie detector. If Joel could knew, then there was nothing Dean could do about it- and by the pained grimace on Joel’s face, he knew too much.

“You’re lying to your brother. You don’t intend to come out of this unscathed at all.” Joel confessed for him after a pause, exhaling more of the cigarette smoke from his nose in a huff and narrowing his eyes. “You’re not even going to put up a fight, are you?”

“I’m doing this because I have to.” Dean tried his hardest not to sound defensive, but it still showed in the way he gripped the metal frame of the bike post until his knuckles turned red. “If I told Sam, he’d only try to talk me out of it- and it’s a little too late for that now.”

“Because you’re _fighting_ with the intention to _lose,_ just so you can make a tradeoff with a monster.” 

“Wouldn’t you do the same if it meant saving the person you loved?” 

“No, Dean. For fuck’s sake, no.” Joel sounded tired, like he was scolding a student, and bit the inner corner of his mouth as he pulled his cigarette from his lips and watched the ashes float away with the wind. “I love Maryanne more than I love myself, more than I love anything in the world, but I wouldn’t take a risk that large to get her back- because I know she wouldn’t want that.”

“And I know that _He_ would want me to save him. No matter what it took.” Dean spat back. “I know that he wanted me to protect him, and I know that he’s waiting for me to make it up to him now that I’ve failed.”

“How can you say that when you don’t even have the balls to say his name out loud?”

Dean couldn’t respond to that, and Joel knew he couldn’t, so he took the silence as an opportunity to keep talking. 

“I don’t care if you want to jump out into The Empty to get Castiel back and live your happily ever after. I don’t care if you kill Ephraim. Hell, in all honesty, I shouldn’t care about any of the bullshit you want to get yourself into- from now or forever.” Joel shook a hand through his dark hair and kicked a broken shard of glass into a small patch of grass nearby. “But I can’t help but care about what you’re _planning_ to do. I can’t help but call it stupid, and reckless, and risky, and dangerous for both you and-”

“ _Just say it._ Say what I’m ‘planning’ to do, Joel, and stop tip-toeing around the subject.” Dean didn’t know whether he was angry at Joel or at himself, but the emotion showed either way as pushed himself from the bike rack with a sudden force that almost broke it and let the venom in his voice drip from between the gaps in his teeth. “Since you’ve been my little ‘guardian angel’ for a week, and you’ve kept hinting at it like its 'our special little secret' every other fuckin' hour, tell me what I’m going to do. Tell me what you already know.”

Joel didn’t speak, looking off into the distance until Dean slammed his hand onto the bike rail. “Just say it so I don’t have to.”

“You want to make a deal with your own life, Dean. You want to bargain for Castiel’s safety- despite not having shit to trade- because you’re _desperate_.”

“I’m desperate.” Dean seethed. “Yes, Joel- I’m desperate. That’s why I drove for three months to find this damn journal. That’s why I came all the way to Bumfuck Louisiana to track you down. That’s why I’ve made sure Sam has all the money he needs to live without me just in case-” He felt a rock form in his throat as the words struggled to push through, and he felt himself grow small as the weight of the situation sank onto his spine. “-just in case things don’t work out the way I want them to. Because I’m desperate.”

“And because of that, you’re prepared to sacrifice anything.” 

The answer to that rhetorical question was obvious, and knowing it made Dean feel worse than he had in weeks.

“I can’t fail him like this, Joel. I have to go through with my plan- if not just to see his face again, then to make up for everything I’ve done and everything I’ve ignored.” Dean croaked, holding himself and gripping his sleeves as he turned back to face their surroundings.” He waited years for me to notice that I was in love with him. He gave up everything, and now I have to do the same.”

“Dean.”

For the first time in the entire exchange, Joel looked at him, his eyes swimming with an emotion that was less than concern but more than pity, and stepped closer.

“You’re scared, and you’re nervous, and you feel like you have to do this.”

Dean felt his adam’s apple bob in his throat as he tried hard to swallow, but said nothing. 

“You don’t. For God’s sake Dean, stop always feeling like you can’t be happy unless you sacrifice something. Don’t you see what you’re throwing away?”

Dean gave a sad half-smile, trying to put on the cracked pieces of the strong resolve Joel had broken minutes earlier, and wiped away a rebellious tear that had somehow managed to roll down his face.

“It’ll all be worth it if it means I can see him again. If I can save him again.”

Joel only hummed at his response, preparing to say something before thinking better of it, and took three short steps back before taking another cigarette out of its case and lighting it slowly.

They stood like that for 3 straight minutes, with Dean being too restless to go to sleep back inside the motel room and Joel solemnly thinking of things that the company beside him couldn’t even begin to imagine. Dean didn’t know what else to say that wouldn’t unearth the topic that had previously killed the mood until familiarly soothing lyrics eased their way out of the inn’s age-old announcement speakers and wafted around the two of them.

“Joplin.” Dean blurted, downing the rest of his beer and throwing the bottle in the trash can.

“What?” Joel asked, turning his head from the emptied parking lot to look back at the side of Dean’s face.

“Back uh… the other day, you and Sam had the argument on whether Nicks or Joplin was better. Listening to this song reminded me of it. So, Joplin.”

“Heh.” Joel exhaled a breathy chuckle, leaning back with his hands on the bike rack and staring up at the darkened sky. “Turns out you and I are a lot more alike than we care to admit, then.”

“Only because you can see what’s inside of my head.” 

“What can I say?” Joel thunked the side of Dean’s head with the same sly grin he always wore. “I’d feel bad if you carried it all by yourself.”

The two of them exchanged a dry laugh at that and soon fell silent, simply watching the evening clouds roll by to the sound of Janis Joplin until they’d have to force themselves to think about something other than the future again.


	7. Mirror In The Sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean says his goodbyes before falling into the Empty.

The smell of lake water was one that always made Dean feel at home.

Sam thought it was boring, and he told him so every time they stumbled upon a lake on their way to a hunt or just sat by one to kill time, but he never cared about his brother’s opinion whenever it was just him and the water. The way the waves crashed upon themselves, mixing their currents to abide by the wind’s directions and swirling around in front of him like a beckoning call, was a calm in the tempest that he called his everyday life and a song to the storms that bellowed haunting thoughts in his mind.

It was his rare escape, a scene so picturesque he took to envisioning it in the back of his head whenever he needed to dissociate from a particularly nasty situation, and to see it now sent the same shivers of contentment down his back as he looked at the translucent water through the cracked passenger’s seat window and made a point to ignore the clinking of mason jars that sat in the duffle bag in the backseat. 

When he thought about it, he guessed that maybe the beauty of the water was just a way for him to find a single good thing on the solemnly grey day that he had been preparing himself for since he could first see the future again, but maybe fate had just decided to bless him one more time before he defied it for what he guessed would be the last time. Either way, he knew that the reasoning didn’t matter. 

Because no matter what the cause behind it was, that water remained the only thing that kept Dean sane.

“Alright, come on.”

The car came to a stop before Dean could feel it slow down, a few feet away from the lake they had located the night before and nestled behind a cluster of oak trees, and Sam was the first one to step out of it after taking the key out of its ignition and unlocking the doors. Joel followed, wasting no time to share in Dean’s dissociation and walking with Sam towards the mouth of the river, and the two left Dean to sit in his seat and stare at their backs as Sam walked closer towards the water and Joel handed him that worn down duffel bag. 

The angel had been quiet ever since last night, probably thinking of the stupidity of human life or something similar, but Dean hadn’t questioned it. Sam hadn’t either, much to his surprise, and the entire morning had been drenched in a thick contemplative silence as they each prepared for the ritual in their own ways and thought further about just how they’d end up handling the situation. Sam probably wondered how he could help, and Joel was probably wondering how long it would take; but, none of their thoughts seemed to matter when put up against the job at hand. At least not now, not here, and not for a while. 

After a few more moments of watching the lake drift by, Dean then got out of the car, hiking boots hitting stony gravel that crunched with each footstep he took through low swinging branches and steep slopes to the edge of the riverbank.

“Hey, Sammy.” 

“Hey, Dean.”

Sam had moved fast, already sitting cross-legged by a string of trees and pulling the ingredients out of the bag, and Dean puffed down next to him with a grunt as he watched his brother give a final inspection to the materials they were to use later on. Tommy did good work, preserving the virgin’s blood and ensuring that it wouldn’t coagulate on their journey, but Sam checked for clots anyway and squinted an eye as he lifted the mason jar up into the sun. Dean looked too, but didn’t find anything, and surmised that his brother didn’t either when he stuck the jar into the gravel beside him and next to the two other ones he had pulled out. 

“Need any help?”

Sam didn’t respond for a beat, checking the journal Dean had given him on the ride to the lake one more time. “It’s a summoning circle, Dean. How many times have we done this before?”

“More than enough, that’s true.” Dean answered, leaning backwards against a grassy hill and stacking his thumbs on top of each other in a repeated sort of motion. “I just wanted to see if you were game for a little big bro-little bro bonding time before I left to, you know, kill an entire entity.”

“Sounds like you’re the one who’s worried now, huh?”

“Me? Pssh.” Dean tousled his brother’s hair and laughed as he swatted his hand away, watching the waves crash on the shore opposite of them and tilting his head back towards the clouds. “I’m never worried.”

“Is that why you were tossing and turning in your sleep last night?”

“No,” Dean said it with a scrunched nose and a narrowed stare, stopping to smile when he heard Sam chuckle in the background. “I was only doing that because I had a dream you got married before me.” It was a lie, a bad one, but did it's job well enough.

“Knowing you, I probably will- even after you and Cas come back.” Sam wriggled his eyebrows but kept his eyes on blue powder, shaking the clumped lapis lazuli to unpack it in it’s jar. “You avoid commitment like the plague, you know."

Dean let the other part of his sentence slip in one ear and out of the other, putting a hand on his heart and feigning an offense he never had. “My little brother, beating me to something? Hell no- if anything, _I’ll_ be the one to get married first. Maybe just to spite you.”

“Yeah right, I beat you to everything. Besides, didn’t I already beat you at… just about everything academically?”

“School’s for losers, it doesn’t count.”

Sam clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes, beginning his retort in a sardonic drawl. “So in other words, you’re just jealous that I’m strong _and_ smart- unlike you.”

“Oh yeah?”

Dean was quick to leap up from his resting position and onto the back of his brother, leaning on his shoulder with one hand and twisting his knuckles into the top of his skull with the other, and before long the light-hearted attack had turned into a full fledged death battle as Sam kept a vice like pinch just below Dean’s armpit and Dean increased the speed of his noogie until he was almost sure he could see steam coming from the top of Sam’s head. They were adults, sure, but Sam would always be his little brother- and the only one who may have been watching them was an angel who half the time was too lost in his own thoughts to pay attention to his surroundings, anyway. 

“Come on, you two. We’re gaining more and more daylight- and I don’t want to scar any kid with the sight of me ripping my own heart out.” After a few minutes, Joel’s voice rang from the other side of the woods and got closer with each syllable as he walked over to them, the truth of his sentence obvious but still unwarranted, and stirred Sam to push himself away from his brother and back to the task at hand. 

“Joel.” Sam said his name the minute the archangel neared them, watching him flick ashes from a freshly lit cigarette onto the ground a few feet away from them. “Yeah, we’re just about set.”

“Really? ‘Cause I don’t see any summoning circles on the ground.”

Sam looked at the ground a ways away like he was surprised the circle wasn’t there already and grunted as he stood up, making an unwelcome breeze brush against Dean’s shoulder, and smacked his hands together before grabbing the jars of powder from the ground where he was earlier. 

“That’s where the ‘just about’ part comes in.” Dean watched him walk further down the path with jars in tow but chose not to follow, only watching Sam as he stood just beside the water until finally deciding to get to work. 

“Ooh, touche.” Joel replied, leaning against an oak tree with a cooled nonchalance and breathed a sigh into his cigarette, tilting his head to exhale the smoke into the atmosphere and then repeating the process. Dean wondered how often he smoked, and why he started despite ironically being the angel of death, but let the thought die as soon as it sprouted. It wouldn’t be long until he died; and even though it wasn’t the first and most likely wouldn’t be the last time he did so, he wanted his thoughts to be important. He wanted his thoughts to be of the water, and of his brother, and of _him_. 

Because they’d be the last thoughts he’d have before he fell into The Empty and made his own deal with the Devil, playing a game he knew he’d lose and making a bet with nothing but a pipe dream and a terribly blind optimism that should have disappeared years ago.

“Joel,” Sam started, his voice coming from nowhere and making Dean’s eyes dart from the lake onto him. He had that look on his face, the one that said he had just thought of some weird hypothetical situation, and paused in the middle of drawing the summoning circle; all signs of him having a curious question that Dean almost definitely didn’t want to hear. “How are we sure Ephraim isn’t just gonna... trap Dean there? In The Empty?”

“Ephraim doesn’t have the power to do anything like that.” Joel gave the short answer and yawned, something Dean found to be both strangely hilarious and extremely paradoxical. “He’s just a Shepherd- he can’t control The Empty in any way, shape or form.”

He said it like it was common knowledge, but when his floaty sounding answer was met with 4 equally bewildered eyes, Joel shook his head and ran exasperated fingers in his short black hair.

“The Empty is a place that needs someone to be Shepherd over it, to control the angels that are assimilated into it and prevent any ‘situations’ from occuring while the angels are there. It’s just how like Lucifer is supposed to command over Hell, Archangels are supposed to watch over the people of Earth, and God is supposed to handle Heaven. Somehow, Ephraim managed to take over the place of the Shepherd of The Empty- but as far as I know, it's just a title.”

“So what happens if I kill Ephraim?” Dean asked the question through the corner of his mouth, Sam returning to his drawing of the summoning circle though still trying to keep his ears on the conversation.

“Then someone else will be chosen to take his place. Not much else.” 

The first powder- calcite, Dean now recognized it as- was finally down on the ground, shaken loosely on gravel by the water, and Sam popped open the second jar as Joel continued on in his explanation.

“Either way, the Shepherd of The Empty can’t ‘control’ its power unless they’ve been ordained to by the big G himself. So if anything, Ephraim only showed his face because he wanted to mock you, knowing that you’ll never be able to follow him into an afterlife made specifically for angels. Obviously, though, ” Joel gestured to Sam, who was now sprinkling the henbane in the center of the circle. ”That’s wrong.”

“Then what’ll it do when it realizes that Dean’s not an angel?” 

“Well, it’ll spit him back out as soon as it realizes that Dean doesn’t belong there.” Joel now idly waved his other hand in the air as he spoke, slapping away mosquitoes that had begun their early morning flight. “No matter how the scene plays out, Dean will inevitably be cast back into Earth after a few seconds at max. The Empty is a place solely designed for God’s servants- and no matter how hard he tries, if he tries, Ephraim can’t go against that rule.” 

“So, weird ritual now, trip to Denny’s later?” Sensing the end of Joel's explanation, Dean let the half-joke fly loose, undisturbed but well-welcomed in its soothing of the serious mood that had slammed into all of them.

“Sure, Dean.”

“Denny’s is too salty.” Joel interjected, flunking his cigarette butt onto the ground and stomping on it. “Can’t we go somewhere better?”

“Who said we were inviting you?”

“I invited myself. I deserve at least a little something for my part in this-” Joel’s voice got low, low enough to escape Sam’s earshot but yet loud enough to still be heard by Dean. “Especially since you’ve decided to renege on our original deal.”

Dean sighed. “I was wondering why you hadn’t brought that part up yet.” 

“There’s a time and a place for everything.” The angel made a face, releasing it just as soon as he made it, and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Besides, at the time, it wasn’t that big a problem.”

“But it is now?”

“It would have been if Maryanne were here. She doesn’t like liars.” Joel snorted through a breathy huff, staring off into the water and ignoring Dean’s eyes. “But for me, I don’t really care. I never wanted to get in this fight with Ephraim in the first place, remember?”

“Then why haven’t you left yet? And why did you bring it up at all, then?” 

There was a pause, a heavy, stinging pause that seemed to make the wind blow harder and the water rush faster, and ticked by until Joel chose to speak again. “I just wanted to see how you'd react. And to your other point-" Dean watched him think about how to answer, brown eyes scanning yellowing treetops further away until he came to his own conclusion. "I'm still here because I want to see what’ll happen when you fall. What'll happen when- or if -you come back up again.”

Dean swallowed, knowing there was more to that than Joel said or would ever say; and let the topic drop just in time to watch Sam finish the summoning circle with a focused eye and a slow blink.

“Joel, I think this is where we need the Reaper.” After Sam laid down the virgin’s blood, he turned to them; setting the final jar down and looking over to his brother, who had now found himself easily fixated on the finished piece. “Dean, it’s time.”

“You say that like we’re attending a funeral.” Dean was quick to reply, taking steady steps towards his younger brother.

In his own form of a response, Joel hummed, taking his time in lifting his hand in the air and snapping his fingers as he looked towards the horizon. Within seconds, there arrived the grim reaper, dressed again in that velveted black suit with her arms tucked at her side and her eyes lowered to her shoes. She had chosen to arrive in a more opaque form, this time, her body as solid and as visible as either of the three others’, and seemed to detest the feeling of being at least semi-human as the scent of lake water grew overpowering due to another unwanted breeze.

“You called?” 

“Sadly. I know you were terribly busy.” Joel freely let the sarcasm drip from his teeth all as he spoke, looking at the tight-lipped Elena and stretching out a smile of his own before turning back to Sam and Dean. “This is our cue.”

“Wonderful.”

Dean didn’t quite like the way Elena said ‘Wonderful’, like she was looking forward to sending him to the afterlife, but said nothing as he took center stage in the circle and waited for Sam, Joel and Elena to take their places all around him. It felt formal, embarrassing in a strange sort of way, but he shook the feeling off and took his last deep breath in preparation for the ritual to begin.

“You’re the reaper?” Sam’s eyes widened before squinting back to their original shape, the shock of her presence almost immediately drying in his senses when he remembered that it was far from the first time he had seen one of the suited spirits. "I know its a bit late, but thanks. For doing this."

“I'm not doing it for charity, if that's what you mean to imply."

Elena clicked her tongue at Sam's gratitude and tapped her foot on the ground, making Dean wonder if the woman ever felt anything other than mild irritation, general annoyance or a suffocating desire for duty, and took to standing south of the circle with her shoulders squared and her nostrils flared. He almost couldn’t blame Joel for leaving his heavenly post, especially after seeing how most Reapers either had the personality of a blank sheet of scrap paper or were batshit insane, but would never admit it. Especially not now.

Joel walked towards the left of the circle, Sam taking the final place at the right of it, and both looked at Elena expectantly. 

"We need your vessel's blood for the final piece, Joel. Just a drop is fine."

"Really? I was expecting we'd be using a bit more- you know, given with the whole 'beating heart' thing." Joel took the journal from Sam's hands and pointed at the item listed as if he were reporting inciting evidence to Elena.

She squinted at the words momentarily. "That only meant that the vessel had to be _alive_ when they fell into the empty."

"Works out for me, then." Dean interrupted, and Joel muttered hints of a reply as he adhered to Elena's command, pricked his thumb, and let a drop of blood fall into the center of the circle.

In a ritual-esque clockwork, the calcite began to glow around the four of them, vibrating despite sitting on solid earth and murmuring a low hum that made the soles of Dean's shoes move about on top of the pebbles he stood on. In a final movement, he looked to Sam, who seemed to be looking at anything other than him as he focused on the slowly brightening summoning circle below them; and then to Joel, who only nodded back to him before looking back at Elena- who had now stepped inside of the circle but made careful motions as to not smudge any of the markings that lied on the inside of it. He hadn't noticed until it was too late that she had her palms facing forward and her arms braced for a future impact.

"Close your eyes and hold your breath."

Without rhyme, reason, or warning, she pushed him, her palm on his chest releasing just long enough to be replaced by blazing tar that crawled up from nowhere and melded onto whichever one of Dean's limbs seemed to be closest, and let his balance shatter to pieces as his arms flailed forwards and his head slammed backwards.

That push was the final step in Dean's departure, pushing him through the surface and into the depths of Louisiana lake water, through cold currents and past drifting debris, and lower down in that winding canyon of bending earth until the distorted faces of his brother, of Elena and of Joel were erased high above the eternal blue of water and weren’t to be seen again. Then, he never stopped falling. 

Tumbling deeper, deeper into that abrupt abyss of nothing as the water evaporated around him, bobbing into pain and out into a hollow relief in some ever-present cycle his body had no control over and drifting into forbidding tundras of darkness until his eyes could see only the sight of blindness and his body had forgotten the feeling of standing on solid earth; all too suddenly, Dean was trapped in an endless cycle of destruction and rebirth until he could no longer differentiate his dreams from his lucid reality. He wasn’t on Earth, anymore. He wasn’t anywhere. 

Was this what _he_ felt when he fell like this? Did he feel this same, numb, buzzing burn on every inch of his body as the acid of ooze seeped in through his khaki trenchcoat and seared off patches of skin from his muscles? Did it hurt an angel as much as it hurt him, or make him scream into nothing just as loudly as it made Dean holler into that same suffocating silence until his lungs grew sore and his body ached? Seeing that black liquid cover his body, feeling the pain of a fall that should have been painless, inhaling and exhaling those cold knives that scratched his throat all as they stabbed at his heart that had stopped beating ever since he had first splashed into that water; it had all culminated into a tower of excruciating pain that would ebb and flow with each blink. He hated every second of it.

But the pain would occasionally grow to be much more bearable whenever he would think of how he’d complain about all of it to him whenever they finally saw each other again. 

After seconds that felt like years, he had at last made it into that afterlife, his back bouncing off of sleek clear tile before settling on the surface; and after bringing himself back to his feet, finally stood face to face with the Shepherd of The Empty with a grit jaw and a glazed stare.

“Hello, Dean.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments, Kudos, and Anything Elses are all greatly appreciated, and I thank you for helping me get to 1k+ hits.  
> 


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